In June revised oil recovery forecasts for the Buzzard field suggested that it is the largest North Sea oil discovery in the last 25 years. EnCana, the operator, was poised to move to development planning with support from DTI. EnCana has drilled eight appraisal wells and sidetracks into the Buzzard structure north east of Aberdeen since its discovery in June 2001. EnCana estimated oil in place of between 850M and 1.1 billion barrels. EnCana aims to submit a Development Plan Approval in late 2002, with a target date for first oil production of late 2005. In June formal consent was given for Burlington Resources' Calder Field in the East Irish Sea. Calder has 250 billion cu.ft of gas reserves and 49,000 barrels of condensate. Production is expected towards the end of 2003. The Calder Field is the first of five fields in the "Rivers" cluster; the other four "Rivers" fields (Darwen, Crossans, Hodder and Ashland) will be produced as spare capacity becomes available in the Calder Facilities.
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