AIM-listed Lekoil has announced the start of oil production from the Otakikpo Marginal Field in OML 11 in Nigeria
Following the successful re-entry of the Otakikpo-002 well, first oil flowed to surface on 5 September. The well produced oil from the first of four planned production strings, and flowed oil at various choke sizes for over 24 hours at a peak rate of 5,703 bpd at a 36/64 inch choke.
In January this year, the company has said that it expected to produce around 6,000 bpd from the four strings at Otakikpo-002 and Otakikpo-003 wells. Based on the preliminary results, Lekoil now believes that this guidance is likely to be exceeded substantially but the company will provide formal guidance only after further testing and analysis.
Lekan Akinyanmi, CEO of Lekoil, said, “We are delighted to announce that Lekoil is now an oil producer. We always believed in the potential of Otakikpo but the production rate from the first re-entered well has exceeded our expectations.”
Otakikpo-002 will be temporarily suspended now to allow completion and testing of the upper C5 zone, following which an official well-test programme will commence and the rig will move to start re-entry operations on Otakikpo-003. During the well test, oil will flow into onshore storage tanks. The second production well, Otakikpo-003, is expected to come on stream toward the end of the year.
Otakikpo is situated in a coastal swamp location in OML 11, adjacent to the shoreline in the south-eastern part of the Niger Delta. Lekoil Nigeria has a 40 per cent stake participating and economic interest in Otakikpo through agreements signed in May 2014 with Green Energy International.