Independent North Sea producer Serica (AIM: SQZ) said production at the end of the year has proved “disappointing” following a delayed restart on the Triton floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) unit.
Triton, operated by South Korea’s Dana Petroleum, resumed production on 27 December, with the export gas compressor restarted two days later “following extensive root cause analysis and remedial work”, Serica said.
The firm also experienced a “short period of unscheduled downtime” on the Bruce platform related primarily to a subsea intervention to ensure enhanced production reliability on the Rhum field.
These factors meant that 2024 production averaged 34,600 boepd across the year, lower than was expected.
© Supplied by Chris CoxSerica chief executive Chris Cox said: “Production in the second half of 2024 was clearly disappointing and well below the potential of our asset base.
“We and our partners are working to improve planning and procedures to optimise maintenance and maximise production resilience going forward.
“At Triton the key issue has been operating vulnerabilities associated with reliance on a single gas export compressor, and we have stayed in touch closely with the FPSO operator as they worked through root cause analysis in relation to the repeated issues seen in H2 2024.
“We understand what has caused these issues and, together with our partners, are implementing improvements to support better and more reliable future performance.
“As the Triton operations continue their ramp-up, we look forward to seeing both enhanced production as the new wells drilled during 2024 contribute fully, and more resilient operations, as we resume operations with two compressors in Q1.”
The company said it will provide a trading update to shareholders later in the month, on 21 January.
Serica’s producing assets are focused around two main hubs: the Bruce, Keith and Rhum fields in the Northern North Sea, which it operates, and a mix of operated and non-operated fields tied back to the Triton FPSO.
Serica also has operated interests in the producing Columbus (Central North Sea) and Orlando (Northern North Sea) fields and a non-operated interest in the producing Erskine field in the Central North Sea and interests in several earlier stage licences.
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