Offshore staff
COPENHAGEN, Denmark-- Maersk Oil and Qatar Petroleum have achieved landmark production of 1 Bbbl of oil from the Al Shaheen field offshore Qatar.
Maersk became development operator in 1992 and achieved first oil in 1994. Since then, production has built steadily to its current level of 300,000 b/d, while gas flaring has been cut to a minimum.
“This is a very difficult reservoir that was thought to be impossible to produce oil from,” said Deputy Prime Minister HE Abdullah bin Hamad Al Attiyah. “Original estimates were that the field would produce no more than 50,000 b/d, even in the best conditions.”
Today, however, the Al Shaheen reservoirs provide one third of Qatar’s total oil production.
The latest $6-billion development phase includes 15 new platforms, 163 new production and water injection wells, and 140,000 metric tons (154,323 tons) of new facilities. During the installation campaign, Maersk claims to have managed production uptime of over 99% without compromising safety, while reducing gas flaring to a minimum.
Through exporting Al Shaheen’s gas onshore and deployment of gas injection in the field, the company has increased recovery while reducing flaring significantly, despite a large increase in oil production in recent years.
07/20/2010
