Tullow Updates on Ghana, Uganda
Ghana’s offshore Jubilee oil field is expected to resume production “in the next few days”, said UK operator Tullow Oil.
Jubilee supplied 0.93bn m3/yr (90mn ft3/d) of associated gas to shore during 4Q 2015 to the local Ghanaian market, down from 1.25bn m3/yr during the first ten months of 2015, but a scheduled outage last month has overrun.
In an update on April 28 ahead of its midday Annual General Meeting, Tullow said new offtake procedures at Jubilee are being implemented: oil and gas production was halted on March 20 for a scheduled two-week maintenance, including to remedy a fault on the turret bearing of producer ship FPSO Kwame Nkrumah identified in January. The stoppage has now overrun by about 3 weeks.
The next Tullow-led oil and associated gas project offshore Ghana is the so-called TEN project, which the company's CEO Aidan Heavey said had made “excellent progress” and remains “on time and on budget” with first oil expected in July or August 2016. FPSO Prof. John Atta Mills sailed from Singapore on January 23 and arrived in Ghanaian waters on March 2, said Tullow. FPSO mooring is complete and it is now being connected to the subsea infrastructure via the risers and umbilicals, with commissioning of these under way; six of the 11 pre-drilled wells are now completed, with the 7th completion under way.
Ghana's access to gas is limited and it is important for local power generation, so gas supplies to shore from TEN expected to start in 2017 and from an Eni-led offshore project OCTP in 2018 is keenly awaited.
Tullow also said April 28 it was working with the governments of Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania in the light of a decision taken at the weekend to build a $2bn, 1,400 km crude oil pipeline from western Uganda to the coast in northeast Tanzania – rather than via Kenya as first expected. Tullow has significant major oil reserves in Uganda and Kenya and on April 28. In Uganda, three licences are co-owned by Tullow, Total and Chinese state CNOOC. Total CFO Patrick de la Chevardiere told analysts on April 27 he now expects a final investment decision to develop their Ugandan oil in 2017.
Tullow also said it would work with its partners and the Kenyan government on a range of options for development of the 750mn-1bn bbls oil reserves in the South Lokichar basin, including early production using existing infrastructure -- ahead of a full field development with an export pipeline.
Mark Smedley