Offshore staff
CALGARY, Canada — Cenovus Energy and its partners have agreed to restart work on the West White Rose development offshore Newfoundland and Labrador.
They now anticipate starting up the platform in the first half of 2026, with peak oil production of about 80,000 bbl/d by year-end 2029.
Cenovus president and CEO Alex Pourbaix said the partners had worked on de-risking the project over the past 16 months, having suspended the development during a period of falling oil prices.
“With the project about 65% complete, combined with the work done over the past 16 months to firm up cost estimates and rework the project plan, we are confident in our decision to restart this project in 2023,” Pourbaix said.
Last September the company and Suncor agreed on a strategic alignment on their interests in the White Rose and Terra Nova fields in the same region. Cenovus will decrease its interests in White Rose and satellite extensions to respectively 60% and 56.375%, while Suncor will take a larger stake.
The amended royalty structure approved by the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador also supports the project’s economics in periods of low commodity prices, Cenovus added.
The company’s share of remaining capital needed in the run-up is about $2 billion to 2.3 billion, which includes construction costs for completion of the West White Rose full platform, subsea drilling and completions work, and the life extension of the SeaRose FPSO.
This is largely offset by deferral of planned decommissioning costs of $1.6 billion to 1.8 billion over the next five years.
West White Rose should add 14 years of production to the White Rose Field. The drilling platform, incorporating a concrete gravity base structure and topsides, will be tied into existing infrastructure. A 70-day drydock program for the SeaRose FPSO is scheduled for 2024.
05.31.2022
