Partners in the Tullow-operated Jubilee Field offshore Ghana are moving forward with work associated with the field’s Kwame Nkrumah FPSO unit.
“The partnership agreed on a need to stabilize the FPSO turret bearing, which is expected to require shutdown that should commence around the end of the year,” Kosmos CEO Andy Inglis said this week. “The operator estimated this shutdown will take approximately five to eight weeks in 2017, and we continue to work with the partnership to shorten this duration.”
Kosmos holds a 24.08% interest in the Jubilee unit area, with Tullow (35.48%), Anadarko Petroleum,
(24.08%), Ghana National Petroleum Corp. (13.64%) and Petro SA (2.73%).
Other remediation work, such as vessel rotation and catenary anchor leg mooring buoy installation, is scheduled to occur in 2018 and 2019, respectively.
The work comes after an issue was discovered with the vessel’s turret bearing in February 2016, which prompted changes to operating and offtake procedures, according to Kosmos.
“The Jubilee partners are focused on minimizing the downtime associated with this work and the operator estimates total downtime required of less than 12 weeks accumulatively of the stabilization rotation and CALM buoy Installation,” he said. “Work continues with the government of Ghana to upgrade the greater Jubilee Field development plan. The partners remain on track to resubmit the plan to the government with approval expected later this year. Approval should allow drilling at Jubilee to resume around the end of the year and would enable us to book additional reserves.”
Offshore Ghana, production levels are consistently exceeding 50,000 bbl/d at the TEN fields FPSO unit.
“In June final commissioning and testing activity demonstrated the TEN FPSO [unit] and fields can deliver volumes in excess of the vessel’s 80,000 barrels per day nameplate capacity,” Inglis said. “We’ve limited well capacity full year gross sales guidance of 50,000 barrels per day of oil remains unchanged as are the expectations for three liftings net to Kosmos.”
He added the company expects to increase to plateau following the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) ruling on the Ghana-Cote d'Ivoire border dispute. A ruling is expected by September.
However, analysts have chimed in on that.
“We forecast an unfavorable ITLOS ruling on the Ghana-Cote d'Ivoire dispute presents downside risk to KOS' cash flows,” Barclays said in an analyst note. “We expect ~50% year-over-year production growth at TEN in 2018, but would expect volumes to be flat-to-down if the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) determines new wells cannot be drilled.”
—Staff Reports