By Flemming Emil Hansen
COPENHAGEN--Maersk Oil, the oil and gas producing arm of Danish
industrial conglomerate A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S (MAERSK-B.KO), is
well on track to surpass its daily output target of 400,000 barrels
of oil equivalent a day in coming years, its chief executive said
Thursday.
Existing projects under way will bring it up to the targeted
figure from the current daily output of around 265,000 barrels of
oil equivalent, said Chief Executive Jakob Thomasen in an interview
published Thursday in the company's corporate magazine, The Source.
Additional output will be added through production optimization and
ongoing exploration efforts, he said.
"It's pretty straight forward. We have to get more out of our
existing assets, we have to turn our many discoveries into
production, and we need to continue finding new oil through
exploration and acquisitions," Mr. Thomasen said.
Maersk Oil's output has declined by more than a third in later
years, from 425,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day in 2009, mainly
due to its North Sea-based oil fields maturing and maintenance
work.
At first glance, the target may seem ambitious, Mr. Thomasen
said, but Maersk Oil is prepared to invest between $15 billion and
$25 billion in the five years to reach it.
"I am confident about our strategy and the roadmap to achieving
our goal. There are still many uncertainties, for example rig
availabilities which can delay projects, but we will for sure have
an entitlement production of 400,000 boe/d in coming years," he
said.
"We have a strong pipeline of about a dozen significant projects
that will take us to a production floor of 400,000 boe/d. On top of
this, our exploration efforts continue to add new exciting
prospects to the asset portfolio and we are continuously improving
our production efficiency maximizing the recovery factor from our
production assets," Mr. Thomasen said.
Alone from two new major fields Maersk is involved in, the
Chissonga field in Angola and the Norwegian Johan Sverdrup field,
the company expects to add 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day
to its current production. Another significant boost to the daily
output will come from optimization of production at its already
operating fields.
Maersk Oil's head of production operations, Cameron Crawford,
told the magazine he estimates that the company currently misses
out on as much as 40,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day due to
maintenance work and shut in wells, which could be tapped through
more efficient operation of the assets and in some cases the
drilling of infill wells.
- Write to Flemming Emil Hansen at
flemming.hansen@dowjones.com
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