Italian energy major ENI said on July 6 that it has started production from the giant gas field Perla, in the Gulf of Venezuela. The development plan for Perla envisioned by ENI and its Spanish joint venture partner Repsol calls for four offshore platforms, an onshore processing facility and more than a dozen production wells.
“ENI has reached another milestone with the production start-up of the Perla offshore field, in line with the timing presented to the market in March during the Strategy presentation,” ENI CEO Claudio Descalzi said in a statement. “Perla was for ENI one of the most significant start-up projects of 2015, and the today result confirms the validity of our development model that allowed us to reach production in an industry-leading time to market.”
Perla is located in the Cardón IV Block operated by Cardón IV SA, a company jointly owned by ENI (50%) and Repsol (50%). Perla is the largest offshore gas field discovered to date in Latin America and the first gas field to be brought to production offshore Venezuela. This was achieved through close and successful cooperation between the Venezuelan Ministry of Petroleum and Mining, PDVSA, Cardón IV and its Shareholders, according to ENI.
Perla currently holds 17 trillion cubic feet of gas in place, which corresponds to 3.1 billion of barrels of oil equivalent, with additional potential.
The development of the field, discovered in late 2009, was completed in five years. First phase of production at Perla is expected to reach around 450 million cubic feet of natural gas by the end of this year and 1.2 billion cubic feet per day in 2020.
Descalzi met with Venezuelan officials in December, when oil prices were on their way toward the $50 per barrel market, to review the market situation at a time when rival companies were cutting staff and spending on exploration and production.
Venezuela – a key member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) – is pressing for a stable crude oil price of around $100 per barrel.
http://www.neurope.eu/article/eni-repsol-start-production-at-venezuelan-gas-field/