Oil firm Dana Petroleum said yesterday it was aiming to nearly double production by 2016 as it gears up for “significant growth”.
The business, which was taken over the Korean National Oil Company (KNOC) in late 2010, outlined a five-year strategic plan following a year of reorganising the business for growth.
This will include relocating the firm’s Aberdeen headquarters from Carden Place to Centrica’s former offices in King’s Close in May and a complete rebranding of the business.
Operationally, the firm said it is to spend around £653million a year in a bid to increase production from 55,000barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) in 2011 to at least 100,000boepd by 2016.
It says it wants to expand into new areas, specifically in the Middle East, as well as grow in Egypt, Africa and the UK, both through organic growth, partnering and acquisition.
This year will see it spend £700million on capital and revenue spending, including on drilling six exploration wells in the UK North Sea, up from two last year, as well as production drilling and development.
In his first interview nearly a year after joining the business, following its takeover by the Korean National Oil Company, group chief executive Marcus Richards said: “We are going to growing significantly in the next five years.
“We now have a platform to move on, to move exploration into appraisal and to move appraisal into production.
“2011 was fundamentally about putting in a framework to allow us to grow in 2012. The next stage will be getting on the growth path. We will be drilling wells and seeing projects moving forward.”
In total the firm has plans for 18 exploration wells and 29 production and development wells.
Its UK exploration wells in 2012 will be at Platypus and Pharos, in the southern North Sea, Magnolia in the central North Sea, Severn, operated by RWE in the southern North Sea, Contender, operated by Taqa in the northern North Sea, and DONG-operated Glenrothes west of Shetland.
The growth would be to help support KNOC meet ambitions to increase its production to 300,000 boepd in 2012 and to 1.3million boepd by 2030 as Korea increases its need for oil, said Mr Richards.
He said Dana had the second largest acreage holding in the UK North Sea, which was currently about 70% of its business.
It recently won a group of drill-or-drop exploration licenses in the central North Sea in the 26th licensing round and has a number of west of Shetland frontier licenses from the first tranche of the round.
This year it is aiming to increase production to 65,000boepd organically.
In the North Sea the firm is working up development plans for its northern North Sea Western Isles project, possible via a floating production vessel. It is also working on its subsea Arran project in the central North Sea.
Dana now employs about 500 people, with about 120 of those based in Aberdeen. It plans to grow to about 200 in the King’s Close offices.
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