Panda123 re: PiperGood comments re: BUK.
I have to disagree with your comments that any of the other fields could have drained any oil that might be in North Piper. North Piper is updip of the main Piper field and is on a different side of a major graben that separates it from fields to the southwest.
If you zoom into the maps, the key well is the 15-11-a4 well (I think) that sits to the southeast of the North Piper target. That well had 75 feet of Piper sand and oil shows at the top, indicating that oil has moved through the system up there. North Piper is right up dip from that well.... interesting indeed.
Last thing... the wells that have been drilled around North Piper are key to the story, as they show that the Piper sand does indeed pinchout in that area. Most large targets in the North Sea that have been drilled have been simple structural accumulations, North Piper is completely different, it's a stratigraphic play on the Piper sand pinchout... an interpretation that well control appears to support in the immediate area.
The last giant field to be discovered in the North Sea was Buzzard... mayyyybe Huntington... both plays are stratigraphic in nature as those are the harder targets to find and have the guts to drill. North Piper fits into that category IMO.
Time will tell, but it's a valid target IMO and dismissing it because "the North Sea is drilled up like swiss cheese" is exactly the kind of thinking that prevented fields like Buzzard and Huntington from being discovered far earlier than they were.
Good luck Panda, good discussion though. Differences of opinion make the market.