Contracts let for Perla gas field facilities off Venezuela

Oct. 12, 2010
Eni Venezuela BV and Repsol YPF Venezuela Gas SA let contracts to Foster Wheeler AG's global engineering and construction group for prefront-end engineering and front-end engineering design of early production facilities for the Perla gas field in the Gulf of Venezuela.

By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Oct. 12
-- Eni Venezuela BV and Repsol YPF Venezuela Gas SA let contracts to Foster Wheeler AG's global engineering and construction group for prefront-end engineering and front-end engineering design of early production facilities for the Perla gas field in the Gulf of Venezuela.

The planned production facilities will consist of offshore structures, trees, controls, offshore processing, subsea flowlines, export pipelines, a shore approach, utility facilities from the wellheads to an onshore gas plant, and a tie-in to an existing gas and condensate pipeline system.

Cardon IV SA, a 50-50 joint venture of Eni and Repsol YPF, is the operator of the Cardon IV block during exploration and Petroleos de Venezuela SA has a 35% back-in right for the development during which Eni and Repsol-YPF will hold 32.5% (OGJ Newsletter, Apr. 19, 2010).

The discovery well, drilled in September 2009, had a 2,147 m TD and found 240 m of net hydrocarbon pay. The well flowed on production tests at equipment-limited rates of 570,000 cu m/day of gas with 620 b/d of condensate (OGJ, Oct. 26, 2009, Newsletter). Water depth at the site is 60 m.

A delineation well Perla 2 flowed 1.4 million cu m/day of gas and 1,500 b/d of condensate on production tests. Based on these tests, Repsol-YPF in April increased the estimate of field reserves by 30% to 1.6-1.85 billion boe of gas and condensate.

Eni said the fast-track development would target an early-phase production start of 300 MMscfd, by mid-2013 (OGJ, Apr. 19, 2010, Newsletter).