Hurricane Energy said today that production from its Lancaster field had been “promising” since the delivery of first oil in June, despite flowline “constraints”.
The London-listed firm said it had only been able to use one of the two subsea flowlines for much of that period, out of “operational necessity”.
That has put a crimp on “activities planned to increase the company’s understanding of the reservoir’s performance”.
It means production averaged 14,400 barrels of oil per day (bpd) from first oil to August 17, when the last of three crude oil liftings totalling a combined 1.2 million barrels was carried out.
Hurricane anticipates producing 37 million barrels of oil from Lancaster over an initial six years at a rate of 17,000 barrels per day.
The field’s two flowlines are now both working, but production is likely to remain restricted as operations move into the next phase of commissioning over the coming months.
The firm said facilities availability would be 45% for the third quarter, followed by a further three months at 65%, resulting in average production rates of 9,000 bopd and 13,000 bopd, respectively.
Hurricane also gave an update on Lincoln Crestal, the second in a three-well drilling campaign on the Greater Warwick Area in partnership with Spirit Energy.
The wells are being drilled using the Transocean Leader semi-submersible drilling rig.
Lincoln Crestal was spudded on July 12 and has now reached total depth of 1,780 m TVDSS, including a 720 m horizontal section of fractured basement reservoir.
Lincoln Crestal operations have now moved onto preparation for drill stem testing. A further update will be made following the completion of this stage.
Hurricane chief executive Robert Trice said: “We are delighted to provide an update on Lancaster EPS progress and to communicate that our production levels have been above expectations for this early phase of operations.
“However, despite these promising results, we remain cognisant that it will take up to a year to acquire and interpret sufficient performance information to test our reservoir model of the field.
“Now that we are back to flowing the Lancaster wells through separate flowlines, we look forward to gathering data on individual well performance to help optimise well delivery as well as improve the company’s understanding of the reservoir’s performance.
“On the Greater Warwick Area, Lincoln Crestal well operations are now progressing to drill stem testing. We look forward to reporting the result shortly.”
