Maersk Oil Considers Abandoning Tyra East & Tyra West Fields

Maersk Oil has issued a notification to the Danish gas market. The notification announces that production from Tyra East and Tyra West in the Danish North Sea will cease on 1 October 2018, if an economically viable solution for continued operations is not identified during 2016. Under EU regulatory requirements, a decision to end production must be notified to the market in a timely manner.

The Tyra facilities are approaching the end of their operational life due to a combination of more than 30 years of production and subsidence of the underground chalk reservoir, reducing the gap between the facilities and the sea.

The Tyra field is valuable for Denmark and for the Danish Underground Consortium (DUC), with significant gas resources that remain to be extracted. Over the last 15 years DUC has spent more than DKK 1 billion on reinforcing the structures to prolong production.

“Together with our partners in DUC we are now evaluating long term economically viable solutions for recovery of the remaining resources. As part of this, we will consider the terms under which a rebuild of the facilities could take place. The basis for a decision needs to be in place by the end of 2016 to ensure future production from the field,” says Martin Rune Pedersen, Managing Director for Maersk Oil Denmark.

Tyra is Denmark’s largest gas field and the facilities are the processing and export centre for all gas produced by the Danish Underground Consortium (DUC). More than 90% of Denmark’s gas production is processed through the facilities.

Tyra East and Tyra West are also the hub for a number of smaller facilities in the Tyra field, which will be part of the evaluation. This includes the neighbouring unmanned facility, Tyra Southeast, which was extended in 2015.

The Tyra field is operated by Maersk Oil on behalf of the DUC, a partnership between A.P. Moller – Maersk (31.2%), Shell (36.8%), Nords?fonden (20%) and Chevron (12.0%).