BHP Billiton achieved first oil and gas production from the Boris-North well in deepwater Gulf of Mexico on Sept. 17. The time from discovery to production was a rapid-paced 13 months.
Boris-North was developed in 2,400 ft of water at Green Canyon Block 282 using the subsea manifold installed for Boris-South, which is a tieback to the production facility at the ChevronTexaco-operated Typhoon field, located on Green Canyon 236/237 five mi. northwest of Boris. With the onset of Boris-North, gross daily production from the Boris fields is expected to reach 18,000 bbl of oil and 27 MMcf of natural gas, although actual production rates will depend on well performance. Boris-North and Boris-South, which came onstream in Feb., have gross hydrocarbon reserves estimated at 10-35 million boe.
"Working with our partners, we were able to reduce the cycle time by using the exploration well as a producer," said Mike Weill, president of operations and technology for BHP Billiton Petroleum. "The high productivity of the Boris-North well, combined with existing production from Typhoon and Boris-South, will allow us to maintain the Typhoon facility at capacity for the next several months."
BHP Billiton holds a 50 % equity interest and is the operator of Boris-North. Other partners in Boris include ChevronTexaco and Noble Energy, Inc., each with a 25 % interest.
9/29/03