The first export cargo of Catcher oil of approximately 500,000 barrels was lifted this week, earlier than anticipated, and has been sold at a premium to Brent. The second cargo, which is scheduled for the third week of February, has also been sold at a similar premium to Brent.

To date, four production wells – two from the Catcher field and two from the Varadero field – have been brought online. Initial rates from these four producers totalled in excess of 60 kbopd and, as planned, these wells are being deliberately constrained at an average of 20 kbopd whilst final commissioning of the gas processing modules on the FPSO is completed.

Performance of the BW Catcher FPSO has been excellent with high operational uptime. Commissioning of the water injection system has been completed. Gas commissioning is progressing well with the gas import/export pipeline now fully open to the SEGAL pipeline and booster compression test runs successfully concluded. The next stages of gas treatment and export compression commissioning will now follow with the switch to fuel gas for the main power generation and ancillary boilers set to commence this week. Once the gas systems, including gas export, are fully available, production will be brought on-stream from the Burgman field and full production from the Catcher Area is planned to increase to 60 kbopd. This remains on schedule for Q2 2018.

Background

Catcher (Cairn 20% working interest) in the UK Central North Sea ~180km off the North East coast of Scotland comprises three separate fields, Catcher, Burgman and Varadero. The fields will be produced from up to 20 subsea wells with a combination of production and water injection wells tied back via subsea infrastructure to the newly built BW Catcher FPSO. The vessel receives, processes and stores crude oil from the Catcher area and exports associated gas. The operator remains encouraged about the overall recovery from the Catcher Area and continues to forecast peak plateau production of ~60,000 bopd (gross), 20% higher than the production level envisaged which the project was sanctioned.