RWE Dea looks to drill Tees
Offshore staff
LONDON --RWE Dea expects to drill a well shortly on the Tees gas prospect offshore eastern England. It plans to use the jackup Noble Al White, currently engaged for the company on development work on the Cavendish field.
The next priority is to drill the Topaz prospect, southeast of Cavendish. If successful, Topaz could be developed via a single-well subsea tieback to Tullow Oil's Schooner platform, said Christoph Schlichter, RWE Dea UK managing director, at a briefing in London.
Since Cavendish came on stream this summer, the company's UK gas production had climbed to 3.8 MMcm/d (134 MMcf/d). Its biggest undeveloped gas resource is its share of the Orca field, but progress here depends on negotiations with two sets of national authorities – the location is close to the Dutch sector median line.
RWE Dea has another prospect close to Cavendish called Kepler. But the company needs to resolve issues related to CO2 content in Kepler's gas before it can consider development. According to RWE Dea's CEO Dr. Georg Schoening, the combination of low UK gas prices and high taxes on the UKCS are not helping: "If we also had to build a CO2 removal plant for Kepler, it would kill that project."
09/28/2007