Business
Austral Pacific Announces Cheal Oil Production Station Complete
Austral Pacific Announces Cheal Oil Production Station Complete.
About this update from Apex Resources Inc.
[{"type":"text","content":"\n\n\n\nWELLINGTON, New Zealand, Sept. 21 /CNW/ -- Austral Pacific Energy Ltd.\n(TSX-V: APX; NZSX: APX; Amex: AEN) -- Tag Oil Ltd (TSX-V: TAO; OTC Bulletin\nBoard: TAGOF)\n\n\nAustral Pacific Energy Ltd. is pleased to announce that the Cheal\nProduction Station is now online and exporting hydrocarbons to market. Plans\nare now underway for the formal commissioning of the Production Station on\nMonday 8 October. The opening ceremony will be presided over by New Zealand's\nAssociate Minister for Energy, Harry Duynhoven.\n\n\nCommenting on the completion of the Production Station, Austral CEO and\nPresident Thompson Jewell said, "We are very pleased to have reached this\npoint; the construction of the production station has been a long, and\nsometimes trying, process and we wanted to make sure that we had everything in\nplace before talking to our shareholders at our recent shareholder briefing in\nWellington. We were able to announce then that we were looking forward to\nshowing guests around the Production Station and helping us formally\ncommission the plant in early October. We are all very pleased to be able to\nproduce hydrocarbons using our own equipment, and we can be justly proud of\nthe achievements of our dedicated team. Now we can focus on using Cheal as a\nplatform for other developments."\n\n\nSince the pre-commissioning test phase began on August 10, 2007, the\n"state of the art" oil and gas production facility has been fully certified,\nand has processed some 14,000 barrels of oil and 5.9 million scf (standard\ncubic feet) of gas from the "A" site wells. Production rates have been ramped\nup and down according to planned well-testing protocols. The field (both A\nand B wells) is currently reduced to around 600 barrels of oil and 580,000 scf\n(standard cubic feet) of gas per day while optimization work is undertaken on\none of the "A" site wells. The field has produced some 212,000 barrels of oil\nand 185 million scf of gas in total since test production began.\n\n\nCheal is a producing oil and gas field south of Stratford in onshore\nTaranaki, New Zealand. It is 69.5% owned by Austral, which is also field\noperator. The field comprises four active wells, with two more in an advanced\nplanning phase, and contains 2.6 MMbbl of independently certified oil reserves\n(2P) and aroun...