PetroTal Corp. shut in Bretana oil field in Block 95 due to storage capacity limitations resulting from shut down of the Northern Oil Pipeline (ONP) from a Peruvian government public health directive.
The pipeline, operated by Petroperu, has temporarily shut down to combat spread of COVID-19 in communities adjacent to pipeline operations. The directive states that no employees over age of 60 nor with serious chronic diseases should be working in high-risk regions of Peru.
The shutdown is being managed to ensure that operations can return to full production upon reopening of the ONP. PetroTal will move to significantly curtail all costs related to oil field operations, as the company moves into a temporary hibernation mode.
Bretana lies in Maranon basin along the Ucayali River in Peru and is owned and operated by PetroTal. In April, the company brought online its third horizontal well in the field (OGJ Online, Apr. 21, 2020). The field reached record quarterly production of about 9,688 b/d and sales of 9,937 b/d during the year’s first quarter.
