Hopes For More Gas From Maui
April 22nd, 2009
A $60m upgrade of the giant Maui gas-field, whose recoverable reserves have been estimated to be around 300PJ, could extend the life of the field beyond 2020, well beyond what was originally estimated to be the field’s life, projected to be around 25 years. Modern techniques hold out the hope a significant amount of gas above and beyond previous estimates can be extracted.
Cheap Maui gas has dominated the market since the 1970s but has been on long-term decline and was due to run out about now. The Maui joint venture, with Shell Todd Oil Services as operator is planning a “work over” of the wells in order to ensure remaining gas in the field can be extracted. The first stage of the work over will involve a crew of 35 moving on to the previously unmanned Maui B platform for five months to replace the tubing in one of the existing well bores and go on to re-drilling, a process known as “re-completion.”
The other three Maui B wells will be re-drilled and side-tracked. The project will be overseen by US specialist contractor Cudd Energy Services which will move a hydraulic work-over unit to Maui B. Subsequently, the same work may be repeated on the bigger Maui A platform. Contact Energy and Vector have contracted to buy gas from Maui till 2014. Anything above the contracted quantities could be sold to new buyers but Contact would have first right-of-refusal on new gas.
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