Production has started at a new North Sea gas field.
Chinese oil explorer CNOOC, which acquired Canada’s Nexen and its UK North Sea assets for £9.6billlion in February, has begun cashing in on its Rochelle site.
It will now operate the field – 115 miles north-east of Aberdeen – which it co-owns with Endeavour International and Aberdeen-based Premier Oil.
“Initial production is from West Rochelle,” a spokesman for the firm said yesterday.
“Drilling continues on East Rochelle, which is expected to be on-line during the fourth quarter of this year. All production from Rochelle will be processed at the Nexen UK-operated Scott platform.”
The first production comes three years after a major row between Endeavour and Nexen, which own 44% and 41% of the field respectively. In 2010, Houston-based Endeavour asked the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) to rule on a price disagreement with Nexen.
William Transier, Endeavour’s chief executive, has accused Nexen – operator of the Scott field – of setting unreasonably high rates for transporting gas from its Rochelle project through the Scott infrastructure.
Meanwhile, Antrim Energy announced yesterday that routine maintenance of the North Cormorant Platform has been completed, and oil production from the Causeway Field and the Cormorant East Field has resumed.
Production rates from the Causeway Field are expected to rise over the next year with the start-up of the electrical submersible pumps and commencement of water injection.
Antrim’s share price plunged this year after saying it had significant doubts it could continue trading.
It said difficulty securing additional finance and cost overruns were among the reasons it feared for its future as a going concern.
It is hoped that further output will ultimately come on stream thanks to the firm’s wholly-owned Fyne field, which was initially abandoned as uneconomic but is being reassessed after Antrim agreed a deal with Aberdeen-based Advanced Buoy Technology.
ABT and Enegi Oil approached Antrim earlier this year with a proposal to develop Fyne using a buoy which sits just below the surface of the water, housing the production and processing equipment.