Uchenna Izundu
International Editor
VIENNA, Oct. 10 -- OMV AG plans to grow production to 500,000 boe/d by 2010 from a current 324,000 boe/d through aacquisitions and organic growth, a senior company executive told reporters Oct. 9 in Vienna.
"Developing new fields will contribute more than 70,000 b/d in places like Pakistan and New Zealand," said Helmut Langange, head of exploration and production. "We are one of the few companies that can show organic production growth of 5-6%/year." OMV expects 100,000 b/d from its 2010 target will come from acquisitions. Langange acknowledged that would be difficult with high prices now being paid for assets.
Romania is a key license area for the company with 65,000 sq km of acreage. It is applying modern seismic technology to help increase its exploration success.
OMV is focusing on drilling deep wells onshore and deepwater wells offshore in light of high oil prices. Its deep onshore wells are hitting 5,500 m in Austria. "The target has been gas, and we've been very successful with that," Langange told OGJ.
OMV is drilling deepwater wells in the Atlantic margin, New Zealand, and Egypt, but the major problem is securing drilling equipment for which prices have soared. "This is driven by a scarcity of ships and the huge demand in Gulf of Mexico, Norway, and West Africa," Langange added.
OMV is a partner with operator Chevron Corp. in Rosebank, which recently tested 6,600 b/d of oil in July (OGJ Online, July 18, 2007). However, it took the partners 2 years to acquire a drillship that could reach depths of 1,500 m. Hiring these vessels 2 years ago cost $150,000/day and now costs are $600,000/day, Langange said.
Presently OMV is able to recover about a third of its reserves but wants to improve recovery rates to 50% and expand into frontier areas. "Research should focus on how to recover more oil. Enhanced oil recovery is helping and we are using more sophisticated methods such as surfactant flooding, reducing tension pressure, and carbon dioxide flooding to get out more oil and gas."
Langange is not optimistic that prices would ease in the short term. "I don't think the extra capacity will come onstream in time. Projects are being affected by time delays and cost overruns. We see projects that were delayed to 2009-10 instead of starting in 2007-08, which is due to an overheated market and scarcity of skilled workers."
Contact Uchenna Izundu at [email protected].