Italian oil and gas giant Eni has started production of the massive gas field Perla, the largest offshore gas field in Latin America.
The first production well has been opened 50 kilometers (31 miles) offshore, in the Gulf of Venezuela, and is currently in the clean-up phase.
The field is located in the Cardón IV Block operated by “Cardón IV S.A.”, 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.
Eni CEO, Claudio Descalzi, commented, “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. 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”.
The development of Perla has been planned in three phases to optimize time to market and investment pace. It includes four light offshore platforms linked by a 30” pipeline to a Central Processing Facility (CPF) located onshore at Punto Fijo (Paraguaná Peninsula) and 21 producer wells. In the CPF two treatment trains have been installed with the capability of handling 150 Mscfd and 300 Mscfd each.
The development of the field, discovered in late 2009, was completed in 5 years, an industry-leading time to market. This excellent performance was achieved thanks to an extensive use of pre-pack modules in the realization of the onshore gas treatment trains, in order to minimize construction works.
Perla currently holds 17 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of gas in place, which corresponds to 3.1 billion of barrels of oil equivalent (boe), with additional potential. The best wells are estimated to produce over 150 million standard cubic feet per day (Mscfd) each.
Eni’s current net production in Venezuela is approximately 12,000 boed and is expected to exceed 50,000 boed by year end, mainly due to the increase in production from Perla.
This post was sourced from Maritime Executive: View original article here.
