 Exploration and Production
The upstream operations of ConocoPhillips in the North Sea are combined into the North Sea Business Unit (NSBU), where oil and gas exploration, production and transportation are seen as a team effort. The group produce and explore for oil, gas and natural gas liquids in the United Kingdom and Norway, with exploration activities in Denmark.
ConocoPhillips was one of the first companies to begin the search for crude oil and natural gas in the North Sea in the 1960s. Over the years, the company has invested significantly to bring new fields into operation to enhance production, improve reservoir exploitation and extend the life of fields. Today, ConocoPhillips continues to explore actively in the UK and Norwegian continental shelves, employing innovative approaches to finding and developing new fields.
ConocoPhillips produces around 200,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in the UK and is the fifth-largest operator in terms of both hydrocarbon reserves and production. In Norway, we are the third-largest energy company with a daily production of 251,000 barrels of oil equivalent. These combined volumes represent around 30 percent of ConocoPhillips’ worldwide daily production.
ConocoPhillips has a significant production and exploration portfolio in both the UK and Norwegian sectors of the North Sea. In Norway, ConocoPhillips operates the fields in the Ekofisk Area with a 35.1 percent interest in the Ekofisk, Eldfisk and Embla fields and 30.6 percent in Tor. It also has assets in a number of non-operated fields, including Heidrun, Statfjord, Visund, Oseberg, Troll, Grane, Huldra and Alvheim.
In the UK the company is operator of, or has an interest in, a number of fields in the central North Sea including Britannia, BritSats, J-Block, MacCulloch, Alba, Armada, Miller and Statjford. It also has an interest in Clair in the Atlantic Margin.
In the UK southern North Sea, ConocoPhillips operates the Lincolnshire Offshore Gas Gathering System, the Viking transportation system, the Caister Murdoch transportation system and a portfolio of around 30 gas fields.
These include the Viking group of reservoirs, Victor, Vixen, V-fields (North Valiant, South Valiant, Vanguard and Vulcan), Vampire – Valkyrie, Viscount, Kx, the Jupiter gas fields (Ganymede, Callisto, Sinope and Europa), Bell, Caister, Murdoch, CMSIII (Hawksley, Murdoch K, McAdam, Watt and Boulton H), Munro and Saturn including the Hyperion, Atlas, Mimas and Tethys satellites and Kelvin. The company also holds a number of non-operated interests in the southern North Sea.
In the east Irish Sea, ConocoPhillips’ assets include West Millom, East Millom, Dalton, Calder, and the Rivers Terminal.
Onshore, in the UK the company is operator of the Theddlethorpe gas terminal in Lincolnshire and the Teesside oil terminal at Seal Sands in Middlesborough. It also holds a non-operated interest in the Interconnector pipeline (a 145-mile pipeline running from Bacton in the UK to Zeebrugge in Belguim).
 Refining
Refining
The Humber Refinery is located in North Lincolnshire and has a crude oil processing capacity of 221 million barrels per day. Crude oil processed at the refinery is supplied primarily from the North Sea and includes lower-cost, acidic crudes.
Humber is one of the most complex refineries in ConocoPhillips’ portfolio and one of the most sophisticated in Europe. It is a fully integrated refinery that produces light products and fuel oil.
Humber is the only coking refinery in the United Kingdom and is the world’s largest producer of speciality graphite cokes and the largest anode coke producer in Europe. Approximately 70 percent of the light oils produced in the refinery are marketed in the UK, while the other products are exported to the rest of Europe and the US.
Heat and power
Immingham Combined Heat and Power (ICHP) plant is one of the greenest power stations in the world generating 730 megawatts of electricity. The development of ICHP has made a significant contribution to reducing CO2 emissions in the United Kingdom by up to 3 million tonnes a year. The plant is fuelled by natural gas with liquid fuel as backup. It produces electricity and creates steam, which is used by the nearby Humber and Lindsey refineries.
Marketing
ConocoPhillips has significant marketing operations in Europe. In the UK the business is primarily wholesale, selling fuels to independent fuel distributors and owners of petrol retail sites. The petrol sites supplied, and some of the distributors, are branded Jet and are supported by UK marketing programmes. The fuels are distributed from our Humber refinery directly, or to our customers through a contracted road tanker fleet from other UK distribution points supplied by pipeline or rail.
Other markets served are aviation and marine and LPG. JET supplies some of the United Kingdom's growing secondary airports using owned and shared refuelling tankers and storage, and delivers to airlines through contracted refuelling operations. Marine markets are served using contracted vehicles, as is the LPG business.
 Commercial
Europe, Africa and Middle East Commercial buys and sells commodities in markets all over the world. Our commercial employees in the UK are based at the Portman House office in the West End of London, which is the main location for traders in Europe.
We have other commercial offices in Houston, Singapore, and Calgary. In 2007, a new office was opened in Dubai.
The commercial group supports or leverages the optimisation of our assets and activities by:
- Selling own production - through trading and long-term contracts
- Providing low cost feedstock for processing/refining
- Speculatively trading
Commodities traded by commercial include:
- Crude oil and associated refined products
- Gas and power
- Emissions credits; renewable energy credits; freight; coal and liquefied natural gas (LNG)
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