Offshore staff
HOUSTON– Noble Energy’s Tamar gas field offshore Israel has completed its fifth year of operations, producing a cumulative 1.5 tcf.
First-quarter 2018 output was also a new record, with total sales volumes of 959 MMcfe/d.
Leviathan, the company’s second deepwater greenfield development project in the Israeli sector, is around 45% complete. Early last month a drilling rig started operations on the Leviathan-3 well, while a pipelay vessel is installing infield flowlines and gas-gathering pipelines that will connect to the platform.
Noble, which anticipates first gas sales from the field by end-2019, has recently executed various natural gas contracts with customers in Egypt and Israel bringing total volumes under contract for Leviathan to more than 900 MMcf/d.
Included in this amount is a new agreement with an existing customer to provide around 40 MMcf/d from Tamar starting in the current quarter, which will transfer to Leviathan following field start-up.
Last week Noble Energy signed a heads of agreement with the government of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea and other third-parties establishing the framework for development of natural gas from the Alen field in blocks O and Ioffshore Equatorial Guinea. To date, natural gas produced has been re-injected into the reservoir to enhance liquids recovery.
The agreement outlines commercial terms for processing of the gas through Alba Plant LLC’s liquefied petroleum gas plant (Noble 28%) and EGLNG’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility, both at the Punta Europa complex on Bioko Island.
This would result in the Alen field partners and the EG LNG owners accessing global LNG markets.
Gary W. Willingham, Noble’s EVP Operations, said: “This project will transform the Alen platform into an offshore hub for potential development of additional gas fields nearby. First production is anticipated early in the next decade.”
Existing production and processing facilities at the Alen platform and in Punta Europa are said to require only minor modifications to produce and process the Alen gas.
The parties plan to construct a 65-km (40-mi) pipeline to transport gas from the Alen platform to the onshore facilities, with capacity to handle production from multiple fields.
Noble estimates an incremental 600 bcfe could be recovered.
05/17/2018
