Ithaca's UK Stella Field Starts Up

Canada’s Ithaca Energy, the object of a friendly takeover bid earlier this week by Israel’s Delek, announced February 17 the successful start-up of oil production from its North Sea Stella field.

Oil export to the adjacent shuttle tanker has commenced, said Ithaca, adding that the production ramp-up phase will start when the ongoing commissioning of the gas processing and compression facilities is complete.

Ithaca said that a further update on Stella’s status would be provided at its results in late March. Stella’s originally scheduled start-up of November 2016 was revised to this month.

Ithaca’s operating interest in the Greater Stella Area (GSA) is 54.66%, with Dyas (owned by Dutch firm SHV) 25.34% and the UK’s Petrofac 20%. GSA comprises satellite gas fields such as Hurricane. It can also tie into fields with both gas and oil such as Austen and Vorlich, where shareholdings differ but Ithaca has a stake. They are in the UK central North Sea, not far from the Norwegian offshore border.

Fields near Stella (Map: Ithaca Energy)

In its 2015 results presented in March 2016, Ithaca forecast its net production from Stella in 2017 would be 16,000 barrels of oil equivalent/day, based on a full year’s production – which is expected to double Ithaca’s overall production this year (2017).

Also February 17, UK producer EnQuest announced that the Kraken floating production ship (FPSO) arrived at the Kraken heavy oil field four days earlier and was hooked up to the subsea mooring system on February 15; first oil is expected to be delivered on schedule in 2Q 2017.

Mark Smedley