Jadestone gears up for infill drilling on Australian assets

Singapore-based Jadestone Energy has made plans to start an infill drilling program at its assets located offshore Australia in 2019. 

Jadestone is the 100% owner and operator of the producing Stag oil field and the 100% owner of the producing Montara project, both located offshore Western Australia.  Both assets include oil producing fields, with further development and exploration potential.

As previously reported, Montara production was halted at the beginning of November to undertake an inspection and maintenance shutdown, with a focus on clearing a backlog of inspection tasks.

Jadestone said on Wednesday that the maintenance work is progressing smoothly and the company anticipates the operator will restart production operations in early December.

To remind, Jadestone bought the Montara field from Thailand’s PTTEP earlier this year but the Thai company remains the operator during a transition period, in line with the normal regulatory approval process for operatorship transfer. Since the start of transition, which started early last month, Jadestone has identified a backlog of maintenance and inspection activities that need to be addressed, and a decision was taken to undertake a voluntary shutdown from November 1, 2018 to undertake the required work.

Jadestone previously said that, following this shut-down event, further major planned maintenance shutdowns would not be required until at least the second half of 2020.

In an update on Wednesday Jadestone stated that the infill drilling at Montara will begin following completion of regulatory approvals, which are anticipated in the first half of 2019, at which time Jadestone will become the operator.

Jadestone President and CEO, Paul Blakeley, said that the company’s acquisition of the Montara assets just before the end of the third quarter, has resulted in a three-fold increase in the size of its business. Montara’s production during the third quarter 2018 was 7,585 bbls/d.

Stag well location selected 

When it comes to the Stag field, where Jadestone took over operatorship from Quadrant in July 2017, Jadestone achieved 100% facility uptime during the third quarter of 2018. Due to this higher uptime, average production from Stag during 3Q was 3,080 bbls/d (Q2 2018: 2,814 bbls/d).

The company is continuing to pursue opportunities to enhance value at Stag, including drilling its first infill well. The well location and drilling slot have been selected and well design is in advanced planning stages. Based on the latest rig schedule information, the well is now expected to be drilled in the first half of 2019.

Jadestone had two crude oil liftings from Stag during the third quarter, for a total sales production of 422,267 bbls, which is more than double the sales volume from a single lifting in the June 2018 quarter. This has resulted in substantially higher revenue during the quarter, and although it has also resulted in an increase in production costs, on a per unit basis, Stag opex has fallen to $30.13/bbl from $33.09 in the June quarter.

Offshore Energy Today Staff