Ithaca Energy today announced the start-up of production from the Stella field in the North Sea.
Aberdeen-headquartered Ithaca expected the field to come onstream late last year, but electrical faults on the FPF-1 floating production facility and bad weather caused delays.
The company, which is the subject of a £1billion takeover by Israel’s Delek Group, has overcome those setbacks.
An Ithaca spokesman said: “Production has been started from the field and oil export to the adjacent shuttle tanker has commenced.
“The production ramp-up phase will commence when the on-going commissioning of the gas processing and compression facilities is complete.”
The Stella field and the nearby Harrier field are part of the Greater Stella Area.
The project, in the heart of the Central Graben area of the central North Sea, is estimated to hold more than 30million barrels of oil.
The development involves the drilling of subsea wells tied back to the FPF-1 floating production unit, which arrived on site after setting sail from Poland in August 2016.
Ithaca said it would provide further information on Stella’s performance in its 2016 financial results next month.
Ithaca previously said it expected the Stella field to double production at the company to between 20,000 and 25,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.
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