BW Energy said on Monday it had completed the first oil delivery from the Hibiscus/Ruche field, in the first phase of the project offshore Gabon.
“Production performance from the first well has been in line with expectations and is currently stabilized at approximately 6,000 barrels per day,” the Oslo-based company said in a press release.
BW Energy announced the delivery a week after it said it had completed drilling DHIBM-3H, the first producing well in the first phase of the Hibiscus/Ruche project.
The well was drilled to a depth of 12,739.5 feet (3,883 meters) in the Gamba sandstone reservoir. The output goes to the BW Adolo FPSO facility for processing and storage before offloading to tankers, the company said.
BW Energy announced the first oil discovery in the well in 2021.
“The Hibiscus / Ruche Phase 1 drilling campaign targets four Hibiscus Gamba wells and two Ruche Gamba wells that are expected to add approximately 30,000 barrels per day of total oil production when all wells are completed in early 2024,” the company said.
The Hibiscus/Ruche field project aims to drill 12 wells in total to “exploit the prolific Gamba reservoir,” BW Energy says on its website. The development can recover, as reported on Bwenergy.no, 47.9 million barrels according to third-party estimates.
The field is being developed under the company’s license for the Dussafu block, which also includes the Tortue field. BW Energy says it owns 73.5 percent of the assets under the Dussafu permit, while Panoro Energy holds 17.5 percent and Gabon Oil Co. the nine percent.
According to the website, cash from the Tortue project is expected to fund approximately $393 million in Hibiscus/Ruche development investments. BW Energy’s gross production from the Tortue field totaled 883,000 barrels of oil in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to the company’s annual results released on February 28.
CEO Carl K Arnet said the delivery “represents the first of several steps on a path to successive production growth in Gabon as we complete the drilling program and asset upgrades through 2023 and early 2024”.
“Our priority now is to complete start-up activities and stabilize production from the DHIBM-3H well. In parallel, work is progressing towards the start-up of the new gas lift compressor to support production of the six existing Tortue wells, while progressing with the drilling of the next Hibiscus / Ruche production wells as planned,” he added.
In its earnings report, BW Energy projected that its Dussafu production would be between eight and 10 million crude barrels this year.
It said in the report that its strong equity loans “will initially fund reduced investments in the Dussafu license outside Gabon.”
In addition to its expansion into Gabon through Hibiscus/Ruche, Arnet said in the earnings update that BW Energy is “advancing towards the completion of the acquisitions of the Golfinho and Camarupim Clusters in Brazil, which will add more production and access to low-risk development opportunities.”
The company, which is part of the BW Group, also has projects in Namibia, where it recently signed a power purchase agreement with local company NamPower Corp. The deal was signed in February between BW Group subsidiary BW Kudu Ltd and the Namibian network provider, according to earnings. report
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