Engie Ups Size of Norway's Cara Field

Engie E&P, an upstream joint venture of Engie and China's CIC, has upgraded its estimate of the Cara discovery on Norway's North Sea licence PL636.

It now estimates the gas and oil discovery, 14 km from the Engie E&P-operated Gjoa field, at between 56mn and 94mn barrels of oil equivalent (boe). This makes it the second largest discovery offshore Norway in 2016 according to upstream regulator NPD. The previous estimate was 25-70mn boe.

This week, Engie E&P said the Cara licence was declared commercial, with licensees having identified at least one technical and economically feasible concept that provide a basis for initiating studies that should lead to concept selection by November 1 2018 –including a tie-back to Gjoa facilities. 

Expected start-up of production at the Cara field is being targeted for late 2020-early 2021, Engie E&P added.

PL636 licence partners: Engie E&P as operator 30%, Japan's Idemitsu Petroleum 30%, with Oslo-listed Pandion Energy and Wellesley Petroleum 20% each. Pandion was formed to make a management buyout of Tullow's Norwegian assets and secured backing from private equity fund Kerogen.

Engie is in the process of selling its 70% interest in Engie E&P to UK-based Neptune Energy, backed by private equity funds Carlyle and CVC Capital for $3.9 bn (€3.6bn). The proposed deal was cleared by the European Commission this week, but is not expected to close until early 1Q 2018. Engie is also considering selling its LNG business and is in talks with French Total.

Mark Smedley