Catcher lies in the Central North Sea block 28/9 in just 91m of water and is now the subject of development by Premier Oil (50% interest) together with Nautical (15%); Cairn Energy (15%); and Wintershall (20%).
But Premier didn’t find Catcher. It was in May 2009 that EnCore assumed operatorship of what had previously been Oilexco acreage.
The Canadian company had crashed and filed for bankruptcy protection in January that year. In March, Premier Oil snapped up Oilexco’s North Sea portfolio, thereby taking a 35% interest in the Catcher prospect.
Towards the end of 2009, an exploratory drilling programme was finalised and the GSF Galaxy II jack-up was leased by EnCore.
In June 2010, the company disclosed that Catcher well 28/9-1 had been drilled to a total depth of 1,591m, encountering oil bearing reservoir sandstones at 1,402m at the targeted Cromarty Sandstone level.
The well was sidetracked and EnCore later reported that the Catcher discovery and the Catcher East sidetrack were likely to be part of a single significant oil accumulation, which indeed turned out to be the case, with 81m of payzone identified.
Moreover, Catcher could contain in-place oil of up to 300million barrels and it lay in a previously unexplored territory. The find was described as “exceptional”.
Further drilling included the Catcher Southwest appraisal well, 28/9-1Y, which encountered high quality oil-bearing sandstones with a gross reservoir thickness of 137m (80m vertical).
By early 2011, EnCore was drilling the Catcher North well (28/9-03), which also encountered hydrocarbons, albeit the 4m gas and oil pays were at the bottom end of expectation.
Due to the lower than expected oil pay encountered at the well, EnCore recrunched the numbers and said that combined Catcher, Catcher North and Catcher East discoveries held around 40-80million barrels.
By October that year, drilling up the Catcher area was complete, so delivering greater certainty regarding reserves thanks to the various discoveries made, including Varadero and Burgman, plus there remained a number of “highly attractive prospects” in the area.
It was at that point that Premier Oil pounced on EnCore, taking the minnow out for just $340million. EnCore, led by CEO Alan Booth (he is credited with the Buzzard discovery) was struggling financially at the time and needed a safe haven. Premier was already involved in the area and held, for example, 35% of the Varadero medium crude discovery of January 2011 versus Encore’s 15%.
Premier has since got on with opening up Catcher based on a production ship and subsea wells spread as the 135million barrels recoverable starter pack for the area.
Xodus was handed the contract to carry out a subsea FEED, plus assist in the FEED for the three riser systems for each of the production wells that would be needed. The plan is to have the design phase completed by the end of this year.
With a measure of luck, production will start in 2017, so establishing a brand new activity hub for the UKCS into which other projects can tie into.
Catcher has the makings of a shrewd investment for Premier.
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