Ascent on Track for First Gas in Slovenia
AIM-listed Ascent Resources is on track to deliver first gas from its well Pg-11A in Slovenia to Croatia's INA in the coming weeks, it said June 6.
"The downhole portion of the operations to prepare Pg-11A to produce and sell gas is expected to finish in the next seven days following which, we will begin the construction of the short flowline to connect the well to the pipeline which runs to the central processing facility," it said in a stock exchange announcement.
"As the well was fully cleaned up following the extended flow test in 2012, an additional clean-up and flow test will not be carried out once the workover is complete. Instead we will immediately move to connect the well to infrastructure, enabling gas to be produced for sale," it said.
The company is working on connecting the central processing facility to the export line and this work is expected to be completed around the middle of June. The refurbishment of gas separation equipment at the processing facility is also underway and proceeding as planned.
Ascent's customer, INA, meanwhile is completing the re-certification of its pipeline in time to receive Petisovci gas, which will be priced off the Central European Gas Hub.
Gas for neighbouring Croatia
Ascent began commercial production from well Pg-10 in mid-April. The relatively small gas volume supplied by Ascent will help meet domestic demand in neighbouring Croatia, most of which will continue to be sourced from Russia and Algeria. Petisovci inside Slovenia is 5km from the Croatian border.
INA, a joint venture of Croatian state (44.84%) and Hungarian company Mol (49.08%) and the main producer in Croatia, said four months ago in its 2016 results that its equity onshore gas production in Croatia increased by 3% year on year to 13mn barrels of oil equivalent as two out of three new fields in its Medimurje gas cluster were brought onstream. However INA's offshore equity gas production in Croatia declined by 24% from 2015 levels.
INA oil and gas fields on- and offshore Croatia - Map credit: INA
William Powell