Chinese oil and gas giant CNOOC Limited has started production from the Buzzard Phase II development located offshore in the UK sector of the North Sea.

Buzzard Phase II is located approximately 100 kilometres northeast of Aberdeen, the United Kingdom with an average water depth of approximately 96 meters. The Buzzard Phase II project is an expansion of the existing Buzzard field development for CNOOC.

Phase two of the field development was sanctioned back in August 2018. It includes a subsea production and water injection manifold located at a new drill centre, tied back to the existing Buzzard facility.

Namely, while fully utilizing the existing Buzzard facility, the project has also built a set of underwater production systems and now two production wells and two water injection wells have been brought on stream, CNOOC informed on Monday.

As previously reported, Allseas’ Pioneering Spirit vessel completed the heavy lift of the Buzzard Phase II topside module onto the Buzzard ‘P’ platform on 23 June 2021.

Following the installation of the topside module, the subsea bundle installation, as well as topside and subsea hook-up and commissioning, were some of the key scopes to be delivered ahead of the first oil. Subsea 7 completed the installation of a five-kilometre pipeline bundle for the project in late July 2021.

According to the company, the Buzzard Phase II is expected to reach its peak production of approximately 12,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2022, increasing Buzzard’s production to 80,000 BOEPD in total.

Xia Qinglong, President of CNOOC Limited said, “We are very pleased with the commencement of production at Buzzard Phase II. Constant development of the field will strongly promote the growth of the company’s overseas production in the future.”

CNOOC Petroleum Europe Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of CNOOC Limited, is the operator of Buzzard and has 43.21 per cent interest. The remaining interests are held by Suncor Energy (29.89 per cent), Harbour Energy (21.73 per cent) and ONE-Dyas (5.16 per cent).