Jubilee Field has enough reserves - Tullow

TULLOW Ghana Limited has discounted suggestions that the inability of the Jubilee Field, operated by Tullow, to meet its production target of 120,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd) is linked to the capacity of oil reserves in the field.

The company’s Corporate Communications and Investor Relations Manager, Mr Gayheart Mensah, said in an interaction with a group of Ghanaian and Ugandan journalists in the Ugandan city, Kontiki, that the problem “has nothing to do with the capacity of the resource or the field.

“The resource is there. All we need is the ability to bring it out,” he said.

Gayheart Mensah

He equally explained that the shortfall had no relationship with the floatation, production, storage and offloading vessel (FPSO) Kwame Nkrumah stationed at the Jubilee Field. Rather, Mr Mensah said the challenge was as a result of “sand seeping into the wells and chocking the perforators through which the crude flows into the vessel.”

Mr Mensah’s interaction with the journalists formed part of a training programme organised by the Revenue Watch Institute (RWI) for selected journalists from Uganda and Ghana on oil, gas and mining (OGM) issues. It is being support by the Thompson Reuters Foundation, Pens plus Bytes in Ghana and the Africa Centre for Media Excellence (ACME), based in Kampala, Uganda.

 Oil production from the Jubilee Field was initially estimated to peak at 120,000 bopd within the early months of production. The field has since produced at an average of 75,000 to 90, 000 bopd following the start of oil production late 2010, causing Tullow to shift the peak production target of 120,000 bopd to 2013.

That has since generated concerns over the ability of Tullow and its operating partners and the field in particular to achieve the target.

Although Mr Mensah admitted the blocking of wells by sand and a subsequent slowdown in production rates was normal in oil drilling, he said “it is seen as an issue here (in Ghana) because Jubilee is currently our only field.”

To help ease the blockade of the wells by the sand that was restricting the flow of crude into the FPSO, Mr Mensah said Tullow Ghana had redesigned the wells and “passed some chemicals into the well to help dissolve the sand.”

But while that happens, he said the company was also looking at integrating the Jubilee Filed with the Tweneboa-Enyera-Ntoumme (TEN) Project “to boost production rate on FPSO Kwame Nkrumah up to the target of 120,000 bopd.

A successful integration of the three oil fields along the TEN areas with the Jubilee Field – technically called unitisation – is expected to result in an enlarged oil field to be referred to as the Greater Jubilee, he added.

                                   

 

Listing not a priority yet– Tullow Uganda

TULLOW Uganda Limited, the lead operator in Uganda’s onshore oil find, says floating part of its stake in the Uganda Stock Exchange (USE) is currently not its priority.
The company’s Corporate Communications Manager, Ms Cathy Adengo, said in an interview with the GRAPHIC BUSINESS in Hoima, Uganda, that “we do not have a plan to list on the USE now because listing is not our priority at the moment.

“At the moment, our priority is to develop the wells, do well appraisals and test-drillings,” she said.

Cathy Adengo

The company is currently undertaking well appraisals and developments in some of the 46 wells that it has explorative and drilling rights in.

Although the issue of Tullow Uganda floating a part of its stake in the Ugandan exchange was initially proposed, the company’s Corporate Communications Manager said it has been shelved for the time being to enable the company focus more on pressing needs. Those needs, she said included well appraisals, developments and test-drillings.

She could, however, not say if the company will reconsider the possibilities of Tullow Uganda joining the USE anytime soon given that “such a decision will have to be taken by the group – Tullow Plc.”

 A successful floatation of Tullow’s stake on the USE will make Uganda the second African country in which the company’s shares are traded in.

Although Tullow produces oil in six countries across the continent, it is listed only in Ghana, the country that accounts for the group’s largest productions figures in Africa. It is also listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and the Irish Stock Exchange (ISE).

Meanwhile, 16 Ghanaian and Ugandan journalists have completed a 10-day training course in oil, gas and mining (OGM) in Kampala, Uganda.

The course which was interfaced with field trips to oil appraisal and drilling sites in Ugandan’s oil rich basin, the Lake Albert, was aimed at strengthening the quality and quantity of media reportage on the extractive sector in Africa, particular Ghana and Uganda.

It was organised by the Revenue Watch Institute (RWI) and supported by the Thompson Reuters Foundation, Pensplusbytes in Accra, Ghana, and the African Center for Media Excellence (ACME), based in Kampala, Uganda.