Description: 

Shallow gas in the North Sea has, for almost 50 years, been considered a hazard to drilling - but little more than this: something to be identified and avoided in choice of well and facility locations or mitigated in selection of drilling practices.

It has however now been over a decade since the last significant shallow gas blowout in a NW European well – although a more recent event was experienced in a geotechnical borehole for a windfarm project. So, is shallow gas still a safety issue to the industry - and one where geoscience and engineering focus is required?

More recently, focus around the subject of shallow gas has picked up in two other areas: development of shallow gas as a resource and the possible contribution that seepage of shallow gas may be making to greenhouse gas emissions.

Production from Pleistocene “shallow” gas sands has been ongoing in the Dutch sector for a decade and onshore in Denmark for around 70 years. The discovery of the Peon gas field in the Norwegian trench, estimated to have reserves of 1Tcf, and the start of production from Aviat in the UK sector – both in Pleistocene sands, suggests there might be opportunities elsewhere – hitherto overlooked. So, does this merit further exploration focus - or is it just a niche resource?

Finally, focus on greenhouse gas emissions and the particular contribution of methane to the atmosphere, has resulted in ongoing research on a global basis on the possible contribution of marine natural gas seepage. Within the past few years the possible contribution of seepage to the atmosphere from abandoned subsea wells in the North Sea has been the subject of published research. So, how significant might anthropomorphic related subsea seepage be compared to the natural marine seepage budget in the North Sea?

After an introductory overview, this workshop will seek to discuss each of these three themes in a debate type setting allowing the audience to actively participate in discussing each theme in turn after two presentations.

An independent Rapporteur will wrap up the workshop: summarizing the presentations and the discussion from the floor.

Workshop Programme: 

09:00	Shallow Gas in the North Sea: An ongoing hazard, an emerging resource or an environmental issue? - Introduction and Overview G.A. Wood (BP Exploration Operating Co Ltd.)
09:30	Shallow Gas: Is it still the drilling safety risk it once was? A. Hill (BP America)
10:00	Coffee break
10:20	Shallow Gas: An ongoing source of Major Accident Risk Ø. Ruden (Shell International Petroleum Company Limited)
10:50	Discussion: Open Drilling Safety
11:10	Shallow Gas: An overlooked resource opportunity – the example of the Netherlands G. Hoetz (EBN, Netherlands)
11:40	Shallow Gas: as a niche resource – the example of Aviat, UK P. Rose (Apache Corp, UK)
12:10	Lunch break
13:10	Discussion: Open Gas Resource Opportunity
13:30	Shallow Gas: An emerging source of Greenhouse Gas Contribution from subsea wells? M. Haeckel (GEOMAR, Germany)
14:00	Shallow Gas: the natural methane seepage flux perspective M. Hovland (retired, former Equinor) and A.W. Hill (BP America)
14:30	Discussion: Open Environmental Impact
14:50	Coffee break
15:10	Rapporteur's Summary
15:40	Open Discussion
16:00	Closure and Thanks - End of Workshop