Hurricane Energy has hailed the sale of 10million barrels of oil produced from the Lancaster field in the West of Shetland.
The operator said the landmark was reached at the end of August with the offloading of its 24th cargo.
Lancaster started up in May 2019, but under-performance of the field, along with a huge downgrade in resources, has been the source of Hurricane Energy’s woes.
The early production system at Lancaster, currently in place, is only expected to produce a total of 16 million barrels, down from 37.3m.
Meanwhile the total resource estimate from Lancaster and the adjacent Lincoln field was downgraded to 100m barrels.
A competent person’s report by RPS Energy in 2017 had given a figure of more than one billion barrels.
A restructuring plan proposed by the firm was rejected in June, seeing several board members jump ship and private equity fund Crystal Amber increase its holding to 25% the following month.
Hurricane needs to repay a convertible bond by July 2022, and has this week reduced the sum by $62m to $152million.
The company has net free cash flow of $144m.
Concerns have been raised about the ability of the firm to continue if it is not able to make a new charter agreement with Bluewater, owner of the Aoka Mizu production vessel for Lancaster.
Crystal Amber said in June that it expects the new board to focus on repaying the bonds at maturity, so that Hurricane can “fully capitalise on other opportunities within its portfolio”.
The next cargo is expected to be lifted in mid-October.
Hurricane will publish its interim results for the six months to June 30 on October 14.