Ithaca Energy, Partners Initiate Development Of Athena Project

Published: 09-Feb-2010

Ithaca Energy has reported that its joint venture partners of Athena project have approved the immediate purchase of long lead equipment up to the value of $14.85m to initiate the development of the oilfield. A full project team has been commissioned to plan the development and finalize submission of the Environmental Statement and Field Development Plan (FDP) for approval.

First production is being targeted for second quarter of 2011 with estimated initial gross production rates of 22,000bopd.

Orders will be placed for the supply of Electrical Submersible Pumps (ESPs), subsea trees and engineering support. The project team will initially focus on the finalisation of the Environmental Statement and FDP for submission in March 2010. FDP approval by the authorities is anticipated in July 2010.

The team will also undertake the final stage negotiation of contracts for a Floating Production Storage and Offtake (FPSO) vessel, construction and provision of sub-sea facilities and drilling services. The initial development consists of four production wells supported by one water injection well. To date

the company has drilled three wells on Athena, 14/18b-15A, 14/18b-16 and 14/18b-18, which are currently suspended, and will be re-entered and completed for production.

These interventions and the drilling of a water injection well and one further production well will take place in fourth quarter of 2010/first quarter of 2011. Additional wells will be drilled from seabed locations close to existing wells to allow for ease of tie-back to a new subsea manifold.

Production will be routed via the subsea manifold and a 2km, 8 inch flowline to a stand-alone FPSO. Oil production will be exported via shuttle tankers. Produced gas will be used to generate power on the FPSO. Other services will include additional electrical power generation, chemical injection, water treatment and injection, and system monitoring and controls.

John Woods, chief development officer of Ithaca Energy, said: "The Athena Joint Venture Partners have seized a window of opportunity to develop Athena, which has been enabled by the recovery in oil price since Q3 2008. Ithaca as operator of the Athena Development has been working closely with the engineering services sector to negotiate competitive rates that now secure a robust project which is expected to come into production within the next two years."

It is anticipated that all offshore installation works, including FPSO on location, will be complete by the end of second quarter of 2011. The Athena Joint Venture Partners are Ithaca (operator, 22.5%), Dyas UK (47.5%), EWE Aktiengesellschaft (20%) and Zeus Petroleum (10%).

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