Following the successful test run on its oil fields over the weekend, Kosmos Energy Ghana Limited will soon design and instal a sub-sea facility which will be connected to a floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel to pump oil out for production.

Kosmos has already received bids from four companies, namely, SBM, MODEC, SAIPEM and BW Offshore, which have expressed interest in building the FPSO, while Acergy, SAIPEM, Technip and Subsea 7 have also expressed interest in building sub-sea works.

According to a statement signed by representatives of the partners of Cosmos, namely, Tullow Oil Plc, Anadarko Petroleum Corporation and Sabre Oil and Gas, and issued by Kosmos from its headquarters in Texas, USA, contracts were likely to be awarded by the end of this month.

The other partners of Kosmos are E.O. Group, Ghana and the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC).

The statement said upon completion of the testing phase, Kosmos planned to acquire oil samples to conduct comprehensive refinery trials to ascertain the characteristics of the crude oil and its value on the global market.

It said the company was expected to complete the Mahogany-2 Well where the tests were being conducted and later suspend it as a potential development well.

The statement said Kosmos was led by a seasoned management and technical team with extensive international and West Africa experience which had a proven record of finding and developing significant oil reserves.

“With the backing of international private equity investors, Warburg Pincus and Blackstone Capital Partners, the company possesses a significant financial and operational capability to generate and participate in multiple high-impact upstream projects,” it said.

Kosmos also announced that “the company's deep water Mahogany-2 appraisal well in the Jubilee Field offshore west Cape Three points Block tested at a flow rate of 5,200 barrels of oil per day (bopd) of 36-degree API gravity crude oil and approximately 5.5 million cubic feet per day of associated natural gas on a 40/64-inch choke with a flowing tubing pressure of 1,543 pounds per square inch”.

It estimated that the Jubilee Field reservoirs were highly productive, which validated the company's fast-track appraisal and field development programme.

"The findings of this drillstem test go one giant step further to endorse the upside potential of the Jubilee Field by confirming that this reservoir is extremely productive, thereby allowing us to develop the field on an aggressive timetable and as economically as possible,” the statement quoted the Chief Operating Officer of Kosmos, Mr Brian F. Maxted, as saying.

The statement gave the assurance that the company and its partners were moving ahead prudently but expeditiously in order to make progress for early production.

Kosmos Energy, which announced the oil find in June 2007, and its partners will need to invest about $5 billion to fully develop the fields to pave the way for the production of oil.

Due to the cost involved in drilling and the time frame needed for the acquisition of equipment, Kosmos and its partners will develop the discovered fields in phases.

Story by Mabel Aku Baneseh
Source: Daily Graphic - Daily Graphic