Oil company Erin Energy Corporation has started drilling of the Oyo-9 well offshore Nigeria.
Oyo-9 is being drilled with the Pacific Drilling-owned drillship, the Pacific Bora.
Erin hired the drillship for drilling operations on the Oyo-9 in March and the drillship reached its drilling location off Nigeria at the beginning of August.
The well is expected to add an additional 6,000 to 7,000 barrels of oil per day to the field’s current production.
Erin said in an update on Monday that the well is expected to take approximately 62 days to drill and complete. The tie-in of the well to the FPSO for production start is expected in the later part of the fourth quarter of 2017.
Erin Energy has a 100% interest in offshore Oil Mining Leases (OML) 120, which contains the Oyo field. The field started production in December 2009 and the wells are connected to the Armada Perdana FPSO.
The owner of the FPSO, Malaysia’s Bumi Armada, in June suspended the bareboat charter and operations and maintenance contracts with Erin Energy for the FPSO Armada Perdana due to longstanding delays in the bareboat charter payments due by Erin, as well as irregular payments on the operations and maintenance contract.
However, earlier in August, Bumi allowed Erin to flow its Oyo field oil into cargo tanks of the FPSO, despite outstanding debts. The companies are still in talks to reach a solution for the outstanding payments.
Offshore Energy Today Staff