North Sea oil and gas firm Taqa Bratani is gearing up to drill another five to 10 exploration wells, its managing director said yesterday.
The firm, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi’s national energy company (Taqa), saw North Sea production rise 15% in 2011 to 42.9million barrels of oil equivalent a day, helping its parent to post a 30% rise in revenue in its global oil and gas business.
Taqa Bratani managing director Leo Koot said the firm needed to find an extra 15-20million barrels of oil equivalent a day to stand still and that it had built a new exploration team as it looked to add to its reserves over the next couple of years. He added: “We want to maximise value from our existing asset base and continue to build on our portfolio. We will look at acquisitions and add reserves through exploration; and that is new for us.
“We have built an exploration team and expect to be drilling five to 10 exploration wells. It is a significant step. You need to feed the monster.”
The North Sea exploration wells include the Timone, Contender, Cladhan and Darwin prospects, all through partners, plus exploration around Taqa’s northern North Sea assets.
It has the Transocean John Shaw rig on contract for exploration and production drilling, sheltering it from tightness in the North Sea rig market. Taqa also has platform-based rigs and after working on Tern its drilling crew is to move to North Cormorant. Other drilling units could also be started on two of its other platforms.
Announcing its 2011 results, Taqa said higher North Sea production helped to boost revenue 13% to £4.1billion overall and 30% to £2billion in the oil and gas business, however, higher taxes and low gas prices in North America affected the business.
Pre-tax profits grew by 36% to £711million but net profits were down 27% at £129million.
The North Sea take more than doubled to £433million, from £208million in 2010, due to increased production and the chancellor’s 2011 tax grab on oil and gas producers.
Last year, Taqa saw new production from its Falcon field and it took over operatorship and an 81% stake in the Otter field.
Earlier this year, it agreed to farm into the Cladhan field through a deal with Premier Oil due to complete shortly.
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