Oil and gas explorer Nautical Petroleum has said it expects production at the North Sea Catcher field to start in 2015.
The firm said the final field development plan for the discovery, which Nautical estimated held 135million barrels of oil, would be submitted before the end of this year.
Nautical, which has a 15% stake in Catcher, said seismic data on the discovery revealed it had the potential to be larger, but said there was a wide range of volume predictions among its partners in the field.
Premier Oil is the operator with a 50% share, while Wintershall owns 20% and Agora Oil has a 15% stake. Premier has previously estimated that Catcher, 110 miles east of Aberdeen, holds no more than 80million barrels.
In its results for the six months to December 31, published today, Nautical also said that progress had been made on its two other major projects, Kraken and Mariner.
It said the sale of 25% of Kraken to EnQuest in return for carrying £96million to £154million of Nautical’s development costs – completed earlier this year – had addressed funding problems for progressing work on the field.
It added Statoil, the operator at Mariner, was on track to submit a field development plan for the discovery before the end of 2012.
In a statement, chief executive Steve Jenkins said he was also hopeful the UK Government would introduce further measures to offset the damage done by the tax increase in last year’s Budget, including extending and expanding field allowances and creating certainty on decommissioning tax relief.
“The latter will encourage smaller companies to participate in late-life producing assets and maximise their value,” he said.
Nautical said turnover for the six-month period was £139,000, up from £111,000 in the same period in 2010.
Operating losses widened to £4.4million from £2.6million, while pre-tax losses were £3.9million, compared with pre-tax profits of £52.6million in the previous period.
The profits in 2010 came from the £55.1million sale of exploration and evaluation assets during the period.