Offshore staff
HOUSTON -- Work on the Galoc 4 well in the Galoc oil field, offshore Palawan basin, the Philippines, has been finalized with the installation of the subsea tree cap and the testing of the subsea tree systems.
The field operator, Galoc Production Co., says the drillshipEnergy Searcher is currently pulling anchors in preparation for its eight-day demobilization. The rig will be released from service to the project when it arrives and unloads the Galoc equipment and materials in Singapore.
"This brings the drilling and completions phase to a close," says Nido Petroleum Ltd Deputy Managing Director Joanne Williams. "We have weathered three typhoons and some mechanical issues but we now have two horizontal wells in the Galoc reservoir ready for production service. We look forward to the completion of the installation and commissioning phase and the start of production in April."
The Galoc 4 horizontal production well was successfully cleaned up and flowed to surface. This test, in combination with the earlier one of Galoc 3, confirmed that the production wells will flow at much greater rates than necessary for successful development.
Both wells are now ready to be hooked up to the FPSO where they will undergo a detailed testing program to confirm their full flow capacity, optimum production level, and to provide additional reservoir information.
Nido's preliminary estimates of well productivity under flow conditions to the FPSO suggest the maximum potential of the two wells exceeds the 25,000 b/d of oil capacity at the FPSO, however, the field's flowrate will be restrained to maximize oil recovery over the life of the field.
GPC has reported that the installation vesselLewak Champion is in transit to the field and is expected to arrive in the next few days. It will begin the installation of the subsea mooring and risers system to link Galoc 3 and 4 to the FPSO Rubicon Intrepid.
02/28/2008
