Offshore staff

STOCKHOLM, Sweden – Oil production from the Aseng field off Equatorial Guinea is currently more than 50,000 b/d, according to partner PA Resources.

Operator Noble Energy brought the field online in November, seven months ahead of schedule and 13% below budget, with the first oil shipment offloaded to a tanker in December. Currently four of the five subsea wells are in service.

The present focus is on commissioning the fifth production well and the gas re-injection compression facilities.

Aseng’s infrastructure will additionally serve as a hub for tieback of other fields, starting with the current program on the Alen field in block I. This is on schedule to start up late 2013.

The Alen wellhead jacket has been installed and the production platform is 25% complete. Drilling of the subsea and platform wells started late last year, using the semisubmersible Atwood Hunter and the jackup Atwood Aurora.

PA is also a partner in the Azurite development off Congo, where production has been performing below expectations. Evaluation continues of remaining prospectivity in the Mer Profonde Sud license to identify potential prospects for tieback to the Azurite facilities.

The focus is on prospectivity at the Miocene level, currently productive in the Azurite field, and on the deeper Sendji reservoir, a new target identified by drilling on the license in 2010.

02/16/2012