UK-based oil and gas company Serica Energy has resumed production from its Rhum gas field in the UK North Sea, following a shutdown in February.
As previously reported, Serica on February 28 said it had paused production from the Rhum gas field while it worked to replace malfunctioning underwater equipment, after it had identified a fault in the Rhum subsea control module
In a statement on Thursday, announcing Rhum production restart, Serica said: "[...] we are pleased to confirm that production has restarted from the Rhum field following the successful operation with a Diving Support Vessel (“DSV”) to replace a faulty component in the Rhum Subsea Control Module which had necessitated a temporary shutdown of Rhum production. The work was completed without incident despite the difficult weather conditions encountered."
Production from the Bruce field has continued throughout these operations and Serica’s other producing fields (Erskine and Columbus) were not impacted by this Rhum issue. During the Rhum outage, the company’s average net production has been in excess of 15,000 boe/d, the company said.
Mitch Flegg, Chief Executive of Serica Energy, commented: "This was a difficult operation at water depths of over 100 meters in a period of challenging weather conditions. Our skilled teams onshore and offshore have planned and executed the work program safely and efficiently. This has been an outstanding effort.
"During the Rhum shutdown, we have been able to optimize the Bruce production rates, which has helped to minimize cash flow reduction from this production deferral.”
The Rhum field is located in block 3/29a, 44 kilometers north of Bruce, and is a subsea development tied back to the Bruce platform via an insulated pipeline. Serica's partner in the field is Iranian Oil Company (UK) Limited, which holds 50% interest.
Serica acquired interests in the Bruce, Keith, and Rhum (BKR) fields and associated offshore facilities from BP, Total, BHP, and Marubeni in November 2018.