Dunlin oilfield

The Dunlin oilfield is situated 195 km northeast of Lerwick, Shetland, Scotland, in block number 211/23a and 211/24a. It was originally operated by Shell but was sold in 2008 and is now operated by Fairfield Energy and partners MCX.

Under Fairfield initially the platform was operated using the duty holder model. Amec (now AMEC Foster Wheeler) were the duty holder contractor and Aker Solutions was the engineering and upgrade project contract. Fairfield became the duty holder in April 2014.

The Field was originally discovered in July 1973 in a water depth of 151 metres (495 ft) approximately 12 km from the UK-Norway median line. Estimated recovery is 363 million barrels of oil. The oil reservoir is located at a depth of 9,000 feet (2,740 metres).

Dunlin acts as the host platform for production from the Osprey and Merlin subsea fields.

Production started in August 1978 from the Dunlin Alpha platform. This platform is a concrete gravity base (GBS) structure of the ANDOC type (Anglo Dutch Offshore Concrete). It has four legs and storage capacity for 838,200 barrels of oil. The total sub-structure weight is 225,000 long tons (229,000 tonnes) and it is designed to carry a topsides weight of 15,635 long tons (15,886 tonnes). The storage system was decommissioned by Shell from 2005 to 2007 prior to the sale to Fairfield Energy.

The topsides facilities included capability to drill, produce, meter and export oil. It also has capability to re-inject water to maintain reservoir pressure, (111,250 bls/day)predicted. Peak production was 115,000 barrels per day in 1979; and it was approximately in the region of 3500 - 4000 bpd in 2015 prior to the shut in announcement (Production ceased on 15 June 2015) Oil production is by pipeline to Cormorant Alpha and then by Brent System pipeline to Sullom Voe, Shetland. Associated gas powers electrical generation. Some gas was flared.

Osprey was developed by Shell in 1989/90 and employs two drill centres, one for production (with 8 subsea trees) and one for water injection (with 4 subsea tress). The drill centres are connected to the platform via two back to back flowline bundles containing 2 off 8" production flowlines and a 10" water injection line. Subsea trees and the manifolds were supplied by Cameron Oil Tools (now OneSubsea). Subsea control system was supplied by Kvaerner FSSL (now Aker solutions).

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