Enauta, a Brazilian oil company, has begun drilling the new well 7-ATL-5H-RJS in the Atlanta Field of the Santos Basin, off the coast of Brazil.
According to Enauta, the new well will cost $75 million to drill and connect to the FPSO at the field. Production from the well is expected to start in the first quarter of 2023.
Early in February 2022, Enauta signed a contract to hire the Alpha Star semi-submersible drilling rig to drill the fourth production well at its Atlanta field. Later, during the same month, Enauta exercised the option for the Alpha Star to drill two wells for Atlanta’s Full Development System.
"In order to optimize investments using the contracts signed in February 2022, the company will drill two additional wells that will be connected to Full Development System of the Atlanta Field, scheduled for mid-2024," Enauta said Wednesday.
The Atlanta field produces oil via Petrojarl I FPSO, an early production system, and Enauta is working to bring another FPSO, a so-called Full Development System, to the field. For this, Enauta in February signed a contract with Malaysia's FPSO specialist Yinson.
Production interrupted
Earlier this week Enauta said that production from the Atlanta offshore field in Brazil had been interrupted.
"The initial assessment is that this is an operational problem on the surface. The current production of the field is 7,500 bbl/day," Enauta said.
The news came less than two weeks after Enauta informed of the interruption of production of the well 7-ATL-3H-RJS in the Atlanta Field, "due to operational reasons."
The company said at the time that "such interruption was originally scheduled for January 2023, when the well would be replaced."
To remind, Enauta said in October it would start the drilling campaign for three new wells in mid-November. The first well 7- ATL-5H-RJS, the spud of which was announced Wednesday, will be connected to the FPSO Petrojarl I in the first quarter of 2023, replacing the well 7-ATL-3H-RJS, when production with three wells will resume.
The new well is set to increase the field's production capacity will increase to over 20,000 barrels of oil per day, Enauta said.
"In addition to increasing production from 2023, this well will allow greater stability to the Atlanta operation due to incremental redundancy to the wells pumping system and greater operational flexibility to the production system," Enauta said on October 26.
As for the Well 7-ATL-3H-RJS it will only resume production when Atlanta’s Full Development System - involving a new FPSO is implemented.
The larger, full-field development FPSO - FPSO Atlanta - is expected to start producing oil from the field by mid-2024.
The Atlanta FPSO is being converted in Dubai Drydocks World, including structural upgrades, refurbishment, and enhancement of equipment. It will have a production capacity of 50,000 BOPD, 12.4 MMscfd gas, and a storage capacity of 1,800,000 bbl.
The storage capacity is ten times bigger than that of the Petrojarl I, which has a production capacity of 30,000 barrels of oil per day and a storage capacity of 180,000.