BHP Billiton Petroleum has reported first gas production from the jointly operated wet gas development at Ohanet in southern Algeria.
The new facility, jointly operated by BHP Billiton and Algeria’s state-owned Sonatrach, was commissioned on schedule and within the original one billion dollar budget, of which BHP Biliton contributed $464 million.
The new processing facility will treat around 710 million standard cubic feet per day (cf/d) of gas and produce a maximum of 30,000 barrels per day (bpd) of condensate and 26,000 bpd of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), together with a stream of dry pipeline sales quality gas for Sonatrach.
A total of 28 new wells have been drilled and completed and 15 existing wells re-completed to develop the four reservoirs forming the development. A further four wells will be drilled after three to four years of production history has been gathered.
“The Ohanet development represents our first commercial production in Algeria," said President and CEO of BHP Billiton, Philip Aiken. “With the completion of the ROD Integrated Development next year we will have built an excellent platform in Algeria on which we hope to build."
BHP Billiton holds a 45 percent equity interest in Ohanet with other partners Japan Ohanet Oil & Gas Co, Woodside Energy Algeria and Petrofac Resources.
In 2000, BHP Billiton and its joint venture partners signed a Risk Service Contract (RSC) with Sonatrach for the development of four gas condensate reservoirs in the Ohanet region of Illizi province, approximately 1300 kilometers southeast of Algiers.
Under the terms of the RSC the total production from the fields is the property of Sonatrach. The foreign participants in the venture bear the total cost of developing the Ohanet reservoirs, and in return recover their investment, together with an agreed fixed profit margin from hydrocarbon liquids production, over a target eight-year period.
The monetary entitlement will be translated into volumes of condensate, butane and propane that will be lifted from export ports on the Algerian coast. These volumes will be determined based on prices posted by Sonatrach.
A total of 28 new wells have been drilled and completed and 15 existing wells have been re-completed. Four further new wells have been deferred to allow three to four years of production history to be gathered. — (menareport.com)
© 2003 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
