Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) has converted the Cendor oilfield offshore Peninsular Malaysia from a marginal field into one of the country's biggest oilfields, with estimated recoverable reserves of over 200 million stock tank barrels (MMstb), more than 16 times what was first discovered.
It announced yesterday the successful drilling of Cendor Graben-2 appraisal well within Block PM304 offshore Peninsular Malaysia.
The well was drilled to a depth of over 1,000 m and confirmed the presence of oil and some gas-bearing reservoirs.
Drilling was undertaken by Petrofac (Malaysia PM304) Ltd, the operator for Block PM304, and its joint-venture partners Petronas Carigali Sdn Bhd, Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company and PetroVietnam Exploration Production Corp Ltd.
The Cendor field was first discovered by Amerada Hess in 2001.
However, the discovery was initially regarded as marginal with estimated recoverable resources of 12 MMstb of oil and deemed too risky and uneconomical for development. In May 2004, Petrofac acquired Amerada Hess' interest and assumed operatorship of Block PM304.
“Driven by Petronas' strategy to grow resources, production and value, aggressive appraisal and development campaign was undertaken which led to the monetisation of this once marginal field.
“Cendor was developed using a leased mobile operating production unit (Mopu) and first oil was achieved in September 2006. This was the first application of Mopu in Malaysia and considered a novel development solution then,” Petronas said.
It added that the Cendor field had performed “above expectation” since first oil production, which helped spur further activities within the field and surrounding areas of Block PM304, culminating in the Phase Two development of Cendor.
“These other developments in PM304, through fast-tracked efforts in the past two years, are expected to commence production in stages throughout 2013, which will propel production to approximately 30,000 barrels per day by end of the year.
“Resource growths are also seen in other oil and gas fields in Malaysia, such as the fields in the Berantai and Balai risk service contracts (RSC). The Berantai field, which commenced production in 2012, achieved an increase in estimated recoverable gas resources by 15% compared to 2011, as a result of development efforts.
“The pre-development work of Balai Cluster has also given early indication of increase in resources estimates,” the state energy company said.
As project owner, Petronas is entitled to 100% entitlement of the production from the Berantai and Balai RSCs.