Shell has announced it will begin drilling in one of its biggest Scottish North Sea energy projects in a decade.

The Fram oil and gas field is located about 135 miles east of Aberdeen. Shell is seeking to develop the site, which is thought to have the potential to pump 5% of Britain’s gas needs.

British/Dutch company Shell shares the field with US Exxon Mobil.

The oil giant said Fram will be up and running within three years and will produce 35,000 barrels of oil and gas equivalent a day.

Glen Cayley, Shell’s vice-president of technical, Europe, said: "This is an exciting announcement for Shell and a positive demonstration of our commitment to technological innovation as we pursue field developments in the UK.

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"Large developments such as Fram will stimulate supply chain and employment opportunities in this latest phase of development for the UK continental shelf."

Mr Cayley said the development would safeguard and create jobs and have a 20-30 year life.

"Large developments such as Fram will stimulate supply chain and employment opportunities in this latest phase of development for the UK Continental shelf," he said.

Two-thirds of production from Fram will be gas and will harnessed using technology which will include a floating, production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel as well as a pipeline spur that will go to St Fergus, near Peterhead.

Cayley said North Sea reserves were "in a state of natural decline and we are never going to see the peak production we saw before the late 1990s. But the natural decline is being mitigated with some large North Sea developments and Fram is one of those."

(IT)