North Sea CMSIII On Stream
Tullow Oil PLC
17 September 2002
Tullow Oil plc
17th September 2002
SOUTHERN NORTH SEA CMS III DEVELOPMENT ONSTREAM AHEAD OF SCHEDULE
Tullow Oil plc ('Tullow' or 'The Company'), the independent oil and gas
exploration, development and production company, with its co venturers, has
commenced natural gas production from the Hawksley field in the southern sector
of the U.K. North Sea. Tullow has interests in the UK North Sea, Onshore UK,
Cote d'Ivoire, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Romania and Algeria.
Hawksley, the first Carboniferous discovery in the U.K. southern North Sea to be
produced by subsea technology, commenced production on Saturday 7th September
2002, three weeks ahead of the scheduled target. It attained a sustained
production rate of 165 million standard cubic feet of natural gas per day. The
co-venturers in the CMS III project are:- Conoco (U.K.) Limited, as operator,
59.5 per cent; Tullow Exploration Ltd, 14.1 per cent, GDF Britain Limited, 26.4
per cent. This interest was part of the Murdoch-Boulton Package acquired by
Tullow from BP/ARCO in February 2001.
The Hawksley discovery well, 44/17a-6Y, was completed in July 2002 in one of
five natural gas reservoirs currently being developed as a single, unitised
project containing some 430 billion standard cubic feet of natural gas. The
other reservoirs are McAdam, Murdoch K, Boulton H and Watt. Collectively, they
are known as CMS III and are being developed using the production and
transportation facilities of the Caister Murdoch System (CMS) in which Tullow
Exploration Limited has a 17 per cent interest. The CMS III satellites are
expected to achieve peak production in the region of 300 million standard cubic
feet of natural gas per day. Tullow also has interests in the Murdoch and
Boulton fields, which are also developed through the CMS infrastructure.
The CMS III subsea infrastructure is now in place and, as each new production
well is completed, tie-in and production will be achieved within weeks. The CMS
complex required extensive new and upgraded facilities, including a new
bridge-linked accommodation platform, which was installed in May 2002, and
tie-ins for the CMS III subsea development. In addition, in mid-2003,
installation of a new compression module will double the CMS compression
capacity to cater for existing and new production, and provide for future
natural gas developments in the area.
Aidan Heavey, Chief Executive of Tullow commented:
'The achievement of early first gas production from the CMS III project is a
major milestone in the continuing development of Tullow's UK North Sea business.
The Hawksley well has validated some of the significant upside that was
recognised when the Murdoch-Boulton Package was acquired from BP/ARCO. We look
forward to further success on the remaining development wells and commend the
operator for the outstanding progress to date.
Tullow anticipates that further incremental developments like CMS III can be
delivered from the additional potential in the Murdoch-Boulton Package which has
not yet been exploited and from six new licences in the CMS area awarded to
Tullow in the recent 20th Round.'
Further information:
Tullow Oil plc Binns & Co PR Ltd
Aidan Heavey, Chief Executive Emma McCaffrey,
Tom Hickey, Finance Director Judith Parry
Tel: +44-20-7333 6800 +44-20-7786 9600
+44-7811-151 487
www.tullowoil.com www.binnspr.co.uk
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