Repsol cleared to start development of Indonesian field

Indonesian authorities have approved the first plan of development (POD) for the Kali Berau field development located in the Sakakemang block managed by Repsol.

Indonesian upstream regulator SKK Migas said last week that the government approved the first POD for the Sakakemang Kali Berau field work area.

With this approval, the regulator stated, the realization of the reserve replacement ratio in 2020 would reach 102 per cent or 705.2 mmboe.

The approval of the plan to develop the working area was awarded by the Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources to Repsol on 29 December 2020.

Through the development of this field, it is projected that the government will receive state revenue of $413 million during the production sharing contract period.

Head of program and communication division of the special task force for upstream oil and gas business activities at SKK Migas Susana Kurniasih said: “With this approval from the government, the cooperation contract contractor is expected to immediately implement the work program that has been planned so that production can be realized immediately“.

“After this approval, SKK Migas will guard the Kali Berau field for immediate production. Accelerating changing the reserve to production is one of the strategies implemented by SKK Migas as an effort to transform SKK Migas in achieving production targets“.

The POD for the Kali Berau field was approved to produce gas reserves of 445.1 bscf gross until the end of the economic limit in 2038 or 287.7 bscf of sales gas with a peak gas production rate of 85 mmscfd and a cumulative production of condensate of 0.17 mmstb with a peak production rate of 34 bcpd.

The investment cost for the development of the field is estimated to reach $359 million, which will be used for re-entry of the KBD-2XST1 well into a production well, drilling and completion of one infill well as a production well, construction of wellpad facilities and construction of several production support facilities such as a flowline from the wellpad to the existing Grissik Central Gas Plant.

The Sakakemang work area is located in Musi Banyuasin Regency, South Sumatra Province. Initially, the Sakakemang cooperation contract was signed between BP Migas and Cakra Nusa Darma in 2010 for 30 years with an exploration period of six years.

The development of the Kali Berau field is believed to provide benefits, including monetization of gas fields that are close to the existing gas distribution network infrastructure so that it can meet domestic gas needs quickly and efficiently.

Also, the development of this field increases national gas production and provides a multiplier effect at the local, regional and national levels.

It is worth noting that Repsol and partners Petronas and Moeco discovered the Kali Berau field in early 2019 and it was dubbed the largest gas find in Indonesia in eighteen years. At the time, the discovery was among the ten largest finds worldwide in the previous year. The field holds a preliminary estimation of at least 2 tcf of recoverable resources.

Wood Mackenzie described the field as being larger than the Santos-operated Dorado oil discovery located offshore Australia. The field is considered to be Australia’s biggest oil discovery of the century and one of the largest oil resources ever found on the North West Shelf.