BP has given the go-ahead for its $500 million Angelin offshore gas field development in Trinidad and Tobago to help offset declining production in one of the company’s main hubs.

Drilling at the Angelin Field, some 60 km off the southeast coast of Trinidad in a water depth of about 65 m, is set to begin in third-quarter 2018.

First gas from the facility is expected in first-quarter 2019, BP said in a statement.

The development, the first major offshore project that the London-based oil and gas company approved this year, will cost about $500 million dollars, a company spokesman said.

The project includes four wells and will have a production capacity of about 600 million cubic feet of gas a day that will be tied into the Serrette platform via 21 km of new pipeline. The gas will then be sold into the domestic market or exported via the Atlantic LNG terminal.

BP also announced it had made two significant gas discoveries with the Savannah and Macadamia exploration wells offshore Trinidad which unlocked some 2 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of gas.

BP’s production in Trinidad has been in steady decline over the last few years, falling from 461,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d) in 2010 to 309 Mboe/d in 2016, according to Biraj Borkhataria, analyst at RBC Capital Markets.

The country accounts for nearly 10% of BP’s global production.

“The sanctioning of Angelin and the new discovery provide a pipeline of resources to help stem ongoing decline rates, which in addition to the start-up of Juniper later this year should help maintain production levels in this important country for BP,” Borkhataria said.

Offshore