Medco to use waterflood injection at S. Sumatra oil fields

JSX-listed oil and gas firm Medco Energi Internasional Tbk. has submitted Plans of Development (POD) to use waterflood injection system in its Kaji/Semoga oil fields on Rimau PSC, South Sumatra in a bid to capture more oil from the mature fields, a company official said.

Eddy S. Sunardi, General manager of Rimau block said Saturday that Medco has proposed to drill 93 wells over the next 4 years with investment estimated at US$110 million. Eddy said that use of waterflood injection is expected to extract 17 million barrels of additional crude, or about 8 percent of remaining oil in place.

Kaji/Semoga commenced oil production in 1997, reaching peak rate of 60,000 barrels per day in 2000 and had declined sharply to 37,000 BPD this year due to reserves depletion.

Earlier, Medco?s director Rashid Mangunkusumo said current strong oil price has made it more economic to adopt EOR technology to increase oil recovery rate. (godang)