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Operators provide update on Atrush output
KUrDIstan
ABu Dhabi National Energy Co. (TAQA) pro- vided a rare update on the development of its Atrush oil eld in the Kurdistan Region of north- ern Iraq this week, noting a small increase since June.
TAQA, which is the eld’s operator and holds 47.4%, is normally more tight-lipped than its junior partner ShaMaran of Canada, which owns 27.6% in Atrush, its only asset.
TAQA said that current gross production from the block was around 34,000 barrels per day of oil, in line with the company’s target for Q2 2019. It said that “the increase in production was largely due to new wells coming on stream and the impact of de-bottlenecking work over the last few months.”
A similar statement was published by ShaMa- ran on its own website.
Celebrating the closure of a deal for the incumbents to split the 15% stake previously held by Marathon Oil in May, the Canadian company noted that production had been run- ning at 32,000 bpd. e Canadian rm’s 2018 revenues from Atrush were $69.6mn.
A deal was reached last December that would give TAQA and ShaMaran another 7.5% each for a total of $63mn.
Marathon’s departure brought to an end a divestment process prolonged by a disagreement between TAQA and ShaMaran. e latter agreed a deal with Marathon last year to acquire the full 15%, taking the Canadian rm’s share to 35.1%, but TAQA, holding 39.9%, blocked the trans- action in November, in keeping with a history of di cult relations between the partners. e Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) retains a 25% working interest.
e block is located 85km north of Erbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous region.
In April, ShaMaran provided an update on an extended heavy oil well test facility, reported now to be in commission, with heavy oil production from the Atrush-3 well, which was anticipated to come on stream by mid-April.
In ShaMaran’s Q2 2019 results, the company said that it anticipated that output from Atrush would reach 45,000-50,000 bpd by the end of the year. It noted that the Chiya Khere‐6 (CK‐6) well had been recompleted in February 2019 and had come online for production in May 2019 at 4,500 bpd, while CK‐11 was drilled to depth by mid‐ March, came online for production in May 2019, is currently yielding 5,500 bpd and has potential to be increased up to 8,500 bpd.
CK‐12 well was drilled to depth at the end of May 2019, and following testing, is anticipated to come online soon, while CK‐13 was spudded in June and is expected to be online for production in Q4 2019.
In February the company announced that an independent evaluation by Canada’s McDan- iel & Associates had raised estimated gross 2P reserves at Atrush from 102.7mn barrels at the end of 2017 to 106mn barrels on December 31, 2018. is took into account 2018 output of 8mn barrels. e gure for 2C reserves was cut from 296mn barrels to 268mn barrels.
Crude from Atrush is purchased by the KRG at the block boundary and pumped through the main Kirkuk-Ceyhan export pipeline.
e discount to the monthly average Dated Brent price was reduced from $15.73 to $15.43 in an amended sales agreement signed in December.™
Image source: TAQA
Week 34 27•August•2019 w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m
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