The companies have won acreage blocks 202/04, 202/05, 204/30, 205/21a, 205/22, 205/23, 205/24, 205/26b and 205/2. The two main prospects range in size from 650 million barrels of oil to more than 1.5 billion barrels, according to Sunshine.
Hurricane will be the operator. It has said it will be using an exploration technique focused on unconventional reservoirs in regions of favourable structural stress allowing identification of very large and previously over-looked prospects.
The patented technique of stress consistent seismic interpretation was developed by Brisbane-based Predrill Stresses International (PSI). PSI chief executive John Davidson is also Hurricane's senior geoscience adviser.
PSI’s ‘pep’ software facilitated the calculation of geological stress in sedimentary basins before drilling, Davidson said.
“Pep determines the direction and magnitude of geological stress,” he said.
“It is a stand-alone technique that removes the need for expensive post-drill and conventional borehole geomechanics.”
According to PSI, pep uses reflection seismic to enable: geologists and geophysicists to predict fault seal; drilling engineers to predict stresses in well planning to prevent expensive borehole breakout or collapse; and reservoir engineers to predict open fractures for optimal recovery.
Hurricane and Sunshine said the west of Shetland area was ideal for using this technology because it had a proven hydrocarbons system where drilling was constrained by seismic and it was also in a well-defined compression zone.
The partners plan to shoot seismic next year, depending on vessel availability.
Sunshine said two main prospects had been identified with unrisked P50 recoverable oil reserves ranging from about 650 million barrels to more than 1.5 billion barrels in water just 150m deep.
The pep technology would be used over one of these targets, said Sunshine.
“This is a potentially large unconventional target, which would put the interpretation techniques fully to the test,” Sunshine said.
“If the Hurricane Interpretation is proved, it will potentially open up previously ignored UK continental shelf areas for further exploration and development.”
The second prospect is a conventional target located near a previous well that had oil and gas indications and will be the target of the exploration well.
