Bosses at North Sea operator Hurricane Energy have announced today that they are “very pleased” with the performance of the firm’s Lancaster discovery for the first quarter of 2020.
Hurricane confirmed it completed a prolonged individual flow test on the 205/21a-6 well at the end of January – then reverted to producing from both wells at increasing rates in February.
Last month, the combined production rate was increased to approximately 20,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd).
The Lancaster field is located 110 miles west of Shetland.
Hurricane Energy said there were three cargo lifts from the Aoka Mizu floating production, storage and offloading vessel (FPSO) during the quarter.
Earley April saw the eleventh successful crude lifting take place, taking total oil sales from the Lancaster early production system to 4.4 million barrels of oil.
Robert Trice, chief executive of Hurricane, said: “We are very pleased with the performance of the Lancaster EPS in Q1 2020. As at the end of March, the EPS has safely produced approximately 4.4 million barrels of oil since starting up last year.
“Despite the significant scale of these produced oil volumes, the Lancaster EPS is still very much in a data gathering phase, as we continue to better our understanding of this unique basement reservoir.
“Further testing at the current rates will be required before any trends can be confirmed and conclusions made about the long-term behaviour of the reservoir.
“Once trends have been established, it is anticipated that alternative combinations of well rates may be tested in order to establish the optimum long-term production configuration for the two wells.
“Whilst water production rates have materially increased since start-up of the Lancaster EPS, Hurricane’s interpretation of water behaviour data has continued to support the company’s perched water model.
“Although it is not possible to predict future changes in water cut at present, the combination of high productivity wells, potential for currently unused production support from ESPs, and water handling capacity of the Aoka Mizu FPSO give the Company sufficient confidence to maintain its forward guidance at 18,000 bopd, net of 10% assumed downtime.”