Ophir Energy restarted production at the Bualuang field in the Gulf of Thailand on 2 September after a 10-day shut down, following the completion of the final tie-in work of a water debottlenecking project.
This was a highly complex brownfield project as work to upgrade the facilities was conducted over the last five months while minimizing production downtime, Ophir said.
More than 100,000 man-hours of work were conducted offshore by local contractor Unithai, with the maximum POB of over 200 people supported by the accommodation barge Posh Bawean from 23rd July to 31st August.
The sub-surface part of the project was completed at the end of 2015 with the drilling of a new water disposal well and the workover of the existing water disposal wells. This was followed in 2016 with a two phase project to upgrade the surface facilities. The combined project has resulted in increasing the design capacity of the water handling and disposal system from 50,000 b/d to 75,000 b/d. Both the drilling and facilities engineering aspects of the project were completed without major incident, recording zero lost-time incidents.
Production is in the process of ramping up as the new system is brought on-stream and tested, but as of 11 September the field was producing at an instantaneous rate of 9700 b/d at a water disposal rate of 64,000 b/d, an increase of 1400 b/d compared to production in late August before commissioning of the new facilities. Capital expenditure to deliver the project was US$20 million and it is expected to increase NPV of Bualuang by $80 million and payback within 12-18 months.
Image of Gulf of Thailand operations, from Ophir Energy's Flickr.
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