Uchenna Izundu
International Editor
LONDON, Mar. 20 -- Venture Production PLC said it will operate the F3-FA gas-condensate discovery on Blocks F3 and B18a off Denmark. The blocks, in which Venture recently acquired shares, hold 60 bcf of gas reserves.
Venture also gained full operatorship of Chiswick gas field in the UK North Sea, which started production in September 2007.
The company bought a 60% interest in Block F3 from NAM BV and a 50% interest in Block B18a for an undisclosed sum.
The field, which lies in 45 m of water, is 230 km north of Den Helder, 20 km east of the F3-FB platform, and 23 km northeast of the F2a-Hanze platform, Venture said.
The deal brings the company into relatively unexplored acreage in the Dutch offshore region. Venture plans to produce gas from a single horizontal well that will target both sides of a fault block in the northern area of the reservoir. It will be a subsea completion and tie-back to existing host facilities nearby.
Offshore processing likely will be carried out on a newbuild mobile production platform to send dry gas and condensate directly into the export pipeline. This will cut out using a third party's topsides processing.
The company has also acquired a 100% interest in Block 49/4b, which contains the Chiswick Gamma well that started production after a successful fraccing program. It will look at drilling as many as three wells, depending on the performance of the first two wells on three main fault blocks within the reservoir.
Venture Chief Executive Mike Wagstaff said, "We are still in the detailed field development planning phase for F3-FA but, subject to agreeing commercial terms with the owners of potential host infrastructure, we anticipate bringing F3-FA on stream by 2011."
The company has clinched five deals since the beginning of this year that would bring more than 15 million boe of resources into production during 2009-13.
Contact Uchenna Izundu at [email protected].
