The Oil and Gas Authority welcomes Total’s announcement of a gas discovery on the Glendronach prospect, West of Shetland.

Chief Executive Andy Samuel, OGA said: “This discovery is clearly great news not just for Total and the Shetland Gas Plant, but as a gas discovery it’s great news for the UK’s security of supply. We know West of Shetland has a significant resource base; some 10 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of gas, which is why we’re supporting industry’s West of Shetland Area Plan to progress exploration and development in the region.

“We’ll soon be releasing our revised Yet-to-Find estimates for the prospective resources across the UKCS and these will highlight that the Atlantic Margin ranks highly in terms of hydrocarbon volume potential. We want to see more activity in the region and we recently made some of these areas available in the current 31st Offshore Licensing Round, which will close on 7th November 2018, and intend to make more acreage in the West of Shetland available for next year’s 32nd Offshore Licensing Round.”