Riser issue for FPSO operating in North Sea sorted out a year after it arose

A production riser, which malfunctioned a year ago on an FPSO operating in the North Sea, has now been replaced. This FPSO is located at the Anasuria cluster and Anasuria Operating Company (AOC), a UK-based jointly‐controlled company by Ping Petroleum and Hibiscus Petroleum’s Anasuria Hibiscus UK, acts as the installation and pipeline operator for this FPSO and cluster.

In June 2022, Anasuria Operating Company became the installation and pipeline operator for the Anasuria cluster and FPSO in the North Sea, located 175 kilometres east of Aberdeen. This entails a 100 per cent interest in the Anasuria, Teal, Teal South, Guillemot A fields and a 38.65 per cent interest in the Cook field.

Within its results for 3Q 2022, Hibiscus disclosed that the Anasuria cluster experienced “weak operational performance” due to the unavailability of a production riser, which malfunctioned in May 2021 and “adversely affected” operational performance.

This is in line with the firm’s statement from May 2022, when it advised that its operational performance continued to be affected by the unavailability of a critical component of the subsea infrastructure related to the production riser that transports produced crude oil to the FPSO Anasuria.

At the time, the company underscored that this component was isolated from the primary production system while the impact of this temporary isolation was a lower overall daily production rate from the Anasuria cluster. In line with this, the company anticipated that there would be an impact on offtake volumes and OPEX per boe in 2022 until the failed component is returned to service.

According to Hibiscus’ update from last week, the project to replace the malfunctioned riser was completed and the riser returned to service in September 2022. The company also says that the relatively strong oil and gas price levels have contributed positively to the profitability levels of its producing assets in Malaysia and the United Kingdom.

Commenting on Hibiscus’ outlook, Dr Kenneth Pereira, Managing Director, remarked: “In the United Kingdom, there have been certain changes announced recently by the government in respect of overall taxation levels, including those applicable to the oil and gas exploration and production sector. It should be noted that whilst the energy profit levy is being increased, corresponding investment incentives are concurrently being offered in conjunction with the increase and it is thus our intention to phase our capex plans to optimise value from these incentives.

“We believe that by doing so, the impact from the tax increases will be minimised and our UKCS growth strategy can progress, albeit cautiously. It is also clear that decarbonisation initiatives within the UK oil and gas sector have been incentivised and this will encourage us to identify further opportunities that will reduce our UKCS carbon footprint.”

Meanwhile, Hibiscus expects that consent for the development of the Teal West field will be granted in early 2023 while the drilling of the initial development well is planned for March 2024. The company’s base development plan for the Teal West field is to drill an oil producer well to the southeast of the geological structure, followed by the drilling of a water injector well at the west of the same structure. However, the water injector is planned to be drilled about 12 to 18 months after the first oil is achieved.

The Teal West field is planned to be tied back to the FPSO Anasuria – about 4 km away – where the well fluids will be processed and exported via the Anasuria infrastructure. The subsea tie-back facilities will be installed in the second quarter of 2024 and the first oil from the development is expected in the second half of 2024.