RELEASE: Oseil oilfield recommences production
Wednesday, October 29 2003 - 02:07 AM WIB
Lion Energy Limited is a 2.5% shareholder in the Seram (Non Bula) Block Production Sharing Contract. The major shareholder, and operator of the joint venture, is KUFPEC (Indonesia) Limited with 97.5%.
The block contains the Oseil Oilfield currently undergoing development.
The Oseil field was initially brought onto production on 31 December 2002, with processing through a temporary production facility. Some 986,000 barrels of crude oil was produced between 31 December 2002 and June 2003. The final lifting of crude oil under the temporary production facility arrangement was on 16 May 2003, with the product being sold to the Singapore HSFO market. The use of a tanker storage system became uneconomical and the temporary production was terminated.
Since then, work has progressed on completion of the Main Production Field Facility (MPF). The MPF is designed to receive crude production from the Field Facility located near the wells, and to then produce High Sulphur Fuel Oil (HSFO) and Naptha. The HSFO will be sold into the Singapore market.
Designed problems with the MPF have now been resolved and on 24 October 2003, the Oseil oilfield was opened to production with well Oseil-2 being brought on line at 13:30 hours. The following day, Oseil-4 well was opened to production.
It is expected that the third well Oseil-1 will also be opened to production soon and that from this point forward all three wells will remain on line through the MPF.
When stabilized, initial field production is expected to be approximately 8,000 BOPD. The operator KUFPEC is currently finalizing all regulatory approvals for Phase-II of the Oseil development, which involves the drilling of up to 15 development wells and some further upgrade of the existing production facilities. Initially five wells are planned for 2004, commencing in the third quarter 2004.
By end 2004 with the additional wells on stream, production is forecast to be at approximately 18,000 BOPD and projected to remain at this rate through to 2009.
Contact: Guiseppe Mercorella, CHAIRMAN of LION ENERGY LTD, ph: (08) 8239-2666, fax: (08) 8239-1744, email: kalrez@kalrez.com.au. (*)