Page 16 - FSUOGM Week 37 2019

FSUOGM PROJECTS & COMPANIES FSUOGM
Caspian Sunrise reports mixed results
KAZAKHSTAN
Caspian suffered widened losses in the first half, but it has seen some encouraging operational progress.
LONDON-LISTED Caspian Sunrise reported on September 12 that operational results from the early-oil phase of its flagship BNG asset had been “extremely encouraging,” but later pub- lished widened financial losses for the first half.
Caspian has been working at the BNG con- tract area in western Kazakhstan since 2011. The acreage holds two hydrocarbon plays – one shal- low and relatively easy to develop and the other one deeper and more difficult to commercialise.
Providing an update on its operations, Cas- pian said it had halted drilling its A8 deep well at a depth of 4,520 metres rather than the intended 5,300 metres to decide whether it would be best to perforate the wells at that level instead. An agreement was reached with its Chinese drill- ing partner Sinopec to perforate the well at a 47-metre interval between depths of 4,346 and 4,499 metres, it said. This work was completed on September 8, it said.
Caspian was “pleased” to report “strong initial gas flows” and a “steady” flow of oil and drilling mud was delivered at a rate of 400 litres per hour.
“We expect the drilling mud to be fully recov- ered in the next few days, after which we will be able to get a more reliable estimate of the flow
rates, using a selection of choke sizes,” Caspian explained.
The oil recovered to date was also of “very highquality”,itnoted,withanAPIgravityof39. “The successful perforation of A8 and the earlyoilshowsareextremelyencouraging,”Cas- pian chairman Clive Carver said. “However, it will only be after an extended flow test that we
will be able to publish reliable flow rate data.”
Despite these positive signs, Caspian suffered a widened pre-loss of $1.5mn for the six months ending June 30, compared with $1.4mn a year earlier. Revenues slumped 12% to $4.4mn as a result of “a sharp fall off in production” especially in the second quarter. Its post-tax loss was even greater, at $2.3mn compared with $376,000 the year before.
However, there is reason to expect Caspian’s financial standing to improve. This summer it secured a licence to export oil from its main shallow structure at double the price to domestic sales. This will help it fund a shallow drilling pro- gramme to ramp up production to 4,000 bpd, up from 1,286 bpd in June, and continue appraising BNG’s deeper layers.™
Rosneft makes progress in Western Siberia
RUSSIA
Rosneft has chalked up achievements at two
of its main greenfield projects.
ROSNEFT has chalked up progress in Western Siberia, reporting the discovery of a new oil- field and the launch of development drilling at a second.
The state oil company’s Uvatneftegaz subsid- iary has found a new oilfield at the Yugansky-1 block in the Khanty-Mansiysk region, the com- pany reported on September 12. The find has been assessed at 5.5mn tonnes (40.3mn bar- rels) of C1+C2 oil resources, Rosneft said. The appraisal well that identified the deposit test- flowed at a rate of 123 cubic metres of oil per day.
Uvaneftegaz operates the Uvat project, a clus- ter of greenfields in the mature Western Siberian basin that have served as a key driver of output growth for Rosneft in recent years. Uvaneft- egaz operates 19 licences containing around 40 known oilfields, most of which have not yet entered production.
Uvatneftegaz’ reserves were estimated at 630.7mn barrels of proven and 867.4mn barrels of probable oil at the end of 2018. The company lifted 10.6mn tonnes (213,000 barrels per day) of crude that year, up from 193,500 bpd a year earlier.
Rosneft also began development this month at another field in Khanty-Mansiysk. The com- pany reported the start of production drilling
on September 10 at the Chaprovskoye oilfield, unveiling plans to sink 12 wells at the site by the end of the year.
Discovered in 1992, Chaprovskoye is one of several fields that form the Erginsky group, which Rosneft acquired from private oil operator Kondaneft in April 2017. Erginsky is tipped to become another major growth project for Ros- neft, containing almost 300mn tonnes (2.2bn barrels) in ABC1+C2 oil resources.
The first field in the Erginsky cluster, Kon- dinskoye, entered operation in November 2017. Together the fields are slated to flow 8.8mn tonnes per year (177,000 bpd) of oil at peak capacity. Rosneft’s overall investments at the pro- ject are forecast to reach RUB390bn ($6bn).™
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Week 37 18•September•2019