Tributes paid to Morecambe Bay gas pioneer
TRIBUTES have been paid to the scientist who discovered gas in Morecambe Bay more than 40 years ago.
Retired chief petrophysicist John Bains has died at the age of 86 after a long and distinguished career, the highlight of which saw him discover Morecambe Bay, one of the UK’s largest gas fields.
Mr Bains first discovered gas reserves in Morecambe Bay in 1972. However, his work was initially dismissed by the company that owned the drilling rights to the area, as it was focusing its search on finding oil rather than gas.
British Gas acquired the drilling rights for the region and an exploration well was drilled in 1974.
Eleven years later gas production started and at its peak the Morecambe Bay field met 12% of the UK’s gas supply.
Today operations in Morecambe Bay, which are central to Centrica Energy’s exploration and production business, account for around 8% of UK Continental Shelf gas supply and produce 500m cubic feet of gas every day.
Earlier this year, the future of the East Irish Sea operations were extended to 2020 following the first new gas in a decade being brought on stream from the Rhyl gas field.
In honour of Mr Bains’ contribution to UK gas exploration and production in 2002 Centrica named its Bains gas field after him.
Mark Hanafin, Centrica Energy’s managing director, said: “John’s determination and expertise uncovered one of the UK’s most important gas fields which has kept millions of homes warm ever since.
“John was hugely respected in his field and revered at Centrica Energy as the father of the Morecambe Bay development.
“At Centrica Energy we pride ourselves on our ‘pioneering’ spirit to extract and process gas from the East Irish Sea and North Sea – John’s vision and perseverance encapsulates this very ethos.”
In his published paper ‘Undiscovery wells of the UK Continental Shelf’, industry expert Graham Dean said: “Without the work of John Bains and others the UK oil and gas industry would be very different and the UK would be poorer.”
Centrica Energy currently employs around 400 people across its offshore gas platforms in Morecambe Bay, its gas processing facilities in Barrow in Furness, Cumbria, and a support base in Heysham,.
