Having spent over two years embedded with Shell’s Victory team, PDi has helped take a complex, subsea tie-back from paper to production - supporting safe start-up and adding new domestic gas into Britain’s grid.

Victory is a single-well subsea tie-back ~47km NW of Shetland, connected into the Greater Laggan Area network and routed to the Shetland Gas Plant, then on to the National Grid at St Fergus. It took FID Jan, 2024 and welcomed first gas in Sept, 2025. A hugely significant development, Victory marked the first new gas West of Shetland since 2017 and first new field feeding the St Fergus system since 2021, bolstering UK energy security.

PDi’s Role on Victory

• Project Engineering and Design Support - subsea interface support across the GLA integration.
• Technical Assurance - readiness reviews, design verification and barrier management support.
• Offshore Execution Oversight - construction / hookup oversight and punch-close coordination with contractors.
• Quality Management Support - ITPs, NCR closeout, supplier surveillance and documentation control.
• Stakeholder Management - alignment across Shell, TotalEnergies (GLA), plant and pipeline.

Outcomes

• With a fully integrated project engineering team embedded within Shell UK, PDi supported assurance delivered right-first-time: critical design and safety case elements cleared with minimal rework.
• Leveraging 23 years of North Sea subsea engineering experience, PDi supported Victory’s efficient tie-back execution leveraging existing GLA / St Fergus infrastructure to compress capex and footprint.
• Offshore presence from the PDi team provided technical representation on behalf of Shell throughout the execution phase – ensuring strong offshore safety performance with proactive quality and punch-close discipline.

Donald Shand, Project Engineer and Victory focal point for PDi explains: 
“PDi supported the Victory project with project engineering, pipeline engineering, project coordination and flow assurance support during the execution phase. Being fully integrated to the project allowed us to demonstrate our technical expertise across pipeline and structural design, installation analysis and offshore execution.

"Leaning on our extensive experience and subsea engineering track record, we were fully aligned with Shell's commitment to safety and quality. Working as one-team, with all subcontractors, meant PDi had a direct influence on project delivery achieving first gas within the committed timeline.”

KeyFacts Energy Industry Directory: PDi