Ithaca drills first wells as North Sea Captain operator

Dec. 2, 2019
Ithaca Energy has issued an update on its UK North Sea operations, which include the recently acquired operatorship of various fields from Chevron.

Offshore staff

ABERDEEN, UKIthaca Energy has issued an update on its UK North Sea operations, which include the recently acquired operatorship of various fields from Chevron.

The latest drilling campaign on the Captain field, which recently finished, involved drilling of five infill wells and two well workovers.

This was the first of two planned well campaigns for Phase 1 of the enhanced oil recovery program on the platform area of the main field, with the second campaign due to get under way in early 2021.

Following the injection of polymerized water to enhance recovery, performance is so far in line with expectations.

Two production wells have been drilled, tested, and suspended for the Vorlich tieback to the Greater Stella Area (GSA) production hub, with the field set to start producing in the second half of 2020.

Also installed are the risers connecting the subsea infrastructure to the FPF-1 floating production semisubmersible.

The pre-assembled units for enhanced recovery of natural gas liquids have been lifted onto the FPF-1. The main outstanding activities are tie-in of the additional FPF-1 processing facilities and installation of a 10-km (6.2-mi) infield flowline between the wells and the vessel.

A new infill well has also come onstream at the Stella field. Another infill well started operating last month at the Brodgar field (a tieback to the Britannia platform) while production from the first of two planned infill wells on the Total-operated Elgin / Franklin field started in August.

Operations on the second well are nearing completion.

Next year Ithaca plans more infill drilling on the Alba field, and the company will also participate in further infill wells on Elgin / Franklin and the Callanish field.

12/02/2019