MAERSK’S recently appointed North Sea UK managing director sees a buoyant future for the business unit.
According to Martin Pedersen, the company has a robust exploration and appraisal and development drilling programme that will play a key role in further building what he believes is now a sustainable enterprise.
“This year we will have drilled four or so exploration and appraisal wells – Balloch, Dunglas, Dunvegan and Culzean, plus we are in Jackdaw which is non-operated,” said Pedersen. “We see this level of activity continuing if not increasing over the next couple of years.
“We have a very active development programme, having drilled seven development wells in 2009 and five in 2010. We see this level of activity continuing over the next couple of years, just on the existing asset base.”
In other words, this takes no account of what Maersk might do in terms of asset or even corporate acquisitions on the UK Continental Shelf as it seeks to build its presence further.
For now, he said the emphasis is on organic growth. “If we look ahead based on our active portfolio and planned programme, we see substantial growth in our UK business.
“We have had success in exploration and bringing discoveries onstream and we see significant potential going forward. This includes the Golden Eagle discovery (operator is Nexen) and Culzean, which is currently being appraised.”
Pedersen played down the gas-condensate Culzean discovery as being “reasonably significant”.
“We would like to see the appraisal results before we try to substantiate that further. Depending on the results of the 22/25a-10 appraisal, side-tracking and a drill-stem test are on the cards.”
As for development options for Culzean, Pedersen insisted that it was too early to talk about a preferred option.
Pedersen highlighted Maersk’s ability to turn a marginal asset into a profitable business, notably Dumbarton, that currently accounts for the bulk of the company’s UK North Sea production.
“Dumbarton has worked out well as a redevelopment of a previously abandoned field. It’s now a significant part of our production portfolio.
“We’ve just brought some new wells onstream so we’re currently running around 30-40,000 barrels per day from that area. This compares with our UK output of some 50,000bpd.”
Another core asset, the Gryphon field produced by a now veteran production ship, was said to also be doing well.
“We see significantly more scope in the area than what was previously thought. That said, there is a time limitation on getting such prospects onstream because of the age of the infrastructure.
Turning to Janis, Pedersen said Maersk’s decision to shut the field down and deal with a catalogue of safety-related issues had paid dividends.
“We have invested significant effort into Janis in order to turn around that facility. In terms of efficiency, we have significantly more confidence now than we had previously and we’re looking to make further investments in Janis in the future and potentially from drilling in the area.
“Janis is a good example of our approach to safety. In 2008, with some of the challenges we had on Janis, we launched internally a process safety audit, with a lot of very good findings coming out.
“We spent 20 man-years addressing those issues to follow up on our process safety audit. That has put us in a significantly stronger position.”