Bacchus oil field is located approximately 116 miles north-east of Aberdeen, in Licence Block 22/6a within the UK’s central North Sea area. It was put into production in April 2012 through the first production well.
Apache North Sea, a UK subsidiary of the American independent oil and gas company Apache Corporation, operates and holds a 70% working interest in the Bacchus development. The remaining 30% interest is held by Endeavour International.
Discovery of the North Sea oil field
“The bundle was tied back to Forties Alpha platform in August 2011. Forties Alpha is a fixed platform built for the Forties oil field operated by Apache.”
The Bacchus field was discovered in July 2005 by the discovery well 22/6a-14 in the UK North Sea. The discovery well encountered 9.5m of oil in Fulmar sandstones of the Upper Jurassic age.
Sidetrack well 22/6a-14Z, drilled in 2006, had encountered another 25m of oil. It was secured and abandoned after being tested at 1,000 barrels a day (bpd) of oil. Down deep well 22/6a-14Z, drilled in the third quarter of 2006, had hit an oil-water contact point.
Nevertheless, a revised cellular model applied after re-mapping the structure showed the presence of stock tank oil originally in place at 104 million barrels of oil.
The life of the Bacchus oil field is anticipated to be 15 years. The field is estimated to produce 18 million barrels of oil per day and 5.7 million cubic feet of gas each day at full production.