CONOCO GROUP STEPS UP INDONESIAN OIL PRODUCTION

Conoco Indonesia Ltd. and partners have surpassed expected peak oil flow from Indonesia's offshore Belida field with completion of Phase 2 development.

Belida production in mid-October was about 130,000 b/d from 29 wells, including 13 producing from Miocene upper Arang pay and 16 from Oligocene Udang.

Belida operator Conoco Indonesia with a 40% interest and partners Texaco Block B Natuna Sea with 25% and Chevron International and Inpex Natuna Sea Ltd. with 27.5% each expected Phase 2 facilities to boost field production to a peak of about 100,000 b/d.

Belida Phase 2 began going on stream in October 1993 when PT Gema SemBrown (GSB) finished hooking up and commissioning Belida Platform B (WHP-B), a four pile, 20 slot structure designed to handle 65,000 b/d of produced fluid and 33 MMcfd of gas (OGJ, Nov. 1, 1993, p. 39). Partners drilled 14 wells from WHP-B, Belida's second platform and the first major project component installed in Phase 2 development.

GSB performed Belida Phase 2 work under a $200 million turnkey contract let in August 1992 covering detailed engineering, procurement, fabrication, and installation of the project's stage two components, including WHP-B, a lift gas platform (LGP), and subsea pipelines linking field platforms.

The company last spring at its Sunda Straits yard in Cilegon, West Java, finished fabricating components for the LGP, an eight pile, two deck structure. The LGP jacket loaded out May 27 and the decks June 16.

GSB used Nippon Steel Corp.'s Kuroshio 1 combination barge to install the structure in Belida field and finished hooking up the LGP platform in mid-August.

GSB is owned jointly by Brown & Root Inc., Houston, Sembawang Engineering, Singapore, and an Indonesian partner, Fadel Muhammad.

BELIDA DATA

Belida field lies in 150-250 ft of water on 3.2 million acre Block B in the Natuna Sea. The Conoco group holds Belida acreage under a 30 year production sharing contract signed in 1968 and extended later to 2018 (OGJ, Jan. 22, 1990, p. 31).

The project's major Phase 1 components included Platform A (DPP-A) and Intan, a 1.3 million bbl floating storage and offloading (FSO) vessel.

Belida oil produced on WHP-B flows through subsea pipelines to DPP-A, where it is combined with DPP-A oil and routed to the Intan FSO. Belida gas is separated from the liquids stream and moved by subsea pipeline to the LGP. There it is injected into production tubing to lighten the liquid column for lifting to the surface.

Belida's Arang and Udang reservoirs produce by water drive and have not shown a need for pressure maintenance.

Partners completed Belida wells in single selective modes to allow the wellbores to produce from either Udang or lower Arang intervals, depending on reservoir conditions. Well distribution between reservoirs is expected to change as the field matures.

Altogether, 15 wells are producing oil from DPP-A and 14 from WHP-B. One other DPP-A well is a gas producer. WHP-B wells were drilled directionally more than 65 from vertical, while 15 of DPP-A's wells were deviated from 24.5 to 74.9.

With completion of Belida's Phase 2 development, field production in 1994 is expected to average about 117,000 b/d. Cumulative recovery under the Conoco group's PSC is expected to amount to about 42.75 million bbl.