Malaysian independent exploration firm Hibiscus Petroleum is set to become a UK North Sea operator after receiving regulatory and shareholder approval for its acquisition of a 50% stake in the Anasuria cluster.
It will be the firm's first producing asset. The cluster, 175km east of Aberdeen in the central North Sea, comprises the Cook, Teal, Teal South, and Guillemot A fields and the Anasuria FPSO, sitting in 94m water depth.
They will all be operated by the Anasuria Operating Company, to be 50/50 held between Hisbiscus and Bermuda incorporated Ping Petroleum, which also has offices in Malaysia and Texas. Only the Cook field, 61.34% owned by Ithaca Energy, will not be 100% owned by the operating company.
The Anasuria FPSO was Shell's first purpose built floating production unit in the North Sea, with 850,000 bbl storage capacity. Oil is transported by shuttle tanker and gas is exported via the Fulmar pipeline to St Fergus, Scotland.
Hisbiscus agreed to acquire its 50% stake in the field from current operator Shell, Shell EP Offshore Ventures and Esso Exploration and Production UK for US$52.5 million. The acquisition is expected to complete by Q1 2016.
With an average net production to Hibiscus and Ping of approximately 7000b/d in 2015, Anasuria has 40.4 MMbbl 2P oil reserves and 27.9 Bcf 2P gas reserves, together with potential for additional reserves through infill drilling.
Production at Anasuria started in 1996. There are currently five producing wells, with potential for gas lift wells, infill drilling at Cook and Guillemot and the Kite discovery development, says Hisbiscus.
Further improvements in production uptime and production rates via the Anasuria FPSO could also be made, as well as gaining processing tariffs from third party tie-ins.
The Anasuria Operating Co. will be led by Phil Oldham, former managing director of Nexen Europe and general manager of Kerr McGee, with former Cue Energy CEO Mark Paton as production director.
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