Taqa ends oil production at Brent North Sea feeder fields

The UAE's Taqa on Sept. 10 ceased production from its last oil facility in the Cormorant area of the northern North Sea, spelling the end of one of the last sources of Brent Blend crude, a spokesperson for the company told S&P Global Commodity Insights.

It follows the closure of two other oil production facilities by Taqa in the area earlier in the year.

"Cormorant Alpha ceased production this morning," with production from the nearby Pelican field also ended, the Taqa spokesperson said. "All of Taqa UK's Northern North Sea platforms and fields have now ceased production."

The announcement marks a significant step down in the UK's storied Brent Blend oil production, which following the closure of Cormorant will now mainly be comprised of production from the Ninian and Magnus hubs, operated respectively by Canadian Natural and UK independent EnQuest.

Canadian Natural has declared Ninian no longer "economic," and earmarked the facility for decommissioning, although the field continues to produce for the time being.

Ninian is due for a 28-day planned maintenance shutdown starting at the end of October, the Canadian company confirmed to Commodity Insights Sept. 10. The field produced just over 8,000 b/d of crude in the first half of 2024.

Brent Blend crude production is far from its heyday when the loading facilities at Sullom Voe could handle over a million barrels a day of oil.

Shell ended production from the Brent field itself in 2021 and has been removing the facilities in a multi-billion dollar decommissioning program, while Brent Blend loadings are now sourced from other fields in the northern North Sea.

Brent Blend loadings in October were already scheduled to fall slightly month on month to 22,581 b/d, according to a copy of the loading program seen by Commodity Insights on Aug. 30.

The eventual Ninian closure is expected to necessitate adaptations by other producers that send oil through the Ninian facilities, primarily EnQuest.

However, the October maintenance shutdown at Ninian does not affect EnQuest's ability to send its crude from Magnus via Ninian to Sullom Voe, with the Enquest production expected to continue, a source close to the situation told Commodity Insights.

Brent Blend is a cornerstone of the Platts Dated Brent North Sea crude oil benchmark; however, Platts, part of Commodity Insights, has progressively added other crudes to the assessment process, most recently adding US WTI Midland crude, mainly sourced from shale oil operations, in 2023.

Dated Brent was last assessed at $72.13/b on Sept. 9, down 90 cents on the day.