Prinos Offshore Development Project comprises a 4km² area covering the Prinos, Epsilon and Prinos North oil fields located in the North Aegean Sea in the Gulf of Kavala. The area under the project lies 8km west of the island of Thasos and 18km south of the main coastline of Kavala in Greece.
Field operator Energean Oil & Gas undertook the project in 2014 to increase production from existing mature fields and identify new exploration prospects for drilling.
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The $277m project includes the drilling of 15 development wells and the installation of a new unmanned platform, along with the laying of pipelines for connecting the new infrastructure to the existing assets. The operator plans to increase the total production up to 10,000 oil barrels a day by 2017 by developing 30mmboe of 2P reserves.
Discovery and reserves of Prinos Area
Eight hydrocarbon deposits have been discovered to date in the Gulf of Kavala. Three of them, namely South Kavala, Prinos and Prinos North, are already in production, while the operator has completed appraising the Epsilon prospect and will shortly begin its development.
The assets in the Prinos Basin were acquired by Energean in 2007 from the Greek authorities. The 2P reserves at that time were one million barrels, whereas at the end of 2013, the reserves increased and were estimated to be 30 million barrels. The area is also estimated to contain a similar level of 2C contingent resources.
The ongoing development project has led to a two-fold increase in the production to 4,000bpd as a result of drilling of wells PA-35A and PA-40.
Prinos offshore development project details
The project includes the development of a drilling resource, infill drilling in the Prinos field, acquiring sub-surface data to identify subsequent development areas, and developing the Epsilon satellite field. The development plans also include a decision on the installation of a second platform at Prinos North.
A total of nine existing wells located at the Prinos Alpha platform will be re-entered and sidetracked to new bottom-hole locations. An extended reach well of Prinos North at the Alpha platform will also be re-entered as part of the development. The drilling programme on Prinos Alpha is expected to be completed by early-2017.
Lamda, a new wellhead jacket platform with 15 slots, will also be designed, fabricated, installed and commissioned in the Prinos area. It will be located 3.5km northwest of the existing Prinos platforms and will transport all the produced hydrocarbons to the Prinos Delta platform for processing. The produce from the fields is shipped onshore to the Sigma plant via subsea pipelines, to be processed and loaded on tankers.
Connecting the new platform to Prinos Delta will be three subsea pipelines including a 10in pipeline carrying fluids from Lamda to Delta. Two 6in pipelines will transport the injection water and lift gas from Delta to the Lamda platform.
The Lamda platform will be used for drilling between five and nine wells in the Epsilon field and will initially function as producer wells. Between two and four of these wells will be converted into water injectors after a period of approximately 18 months.
Potential future developments
Plans are in place to install a second wellhead jacket, Omicron, between Prinos North and Prinos platforms. The new platform will be used for further developing the Prinos North field along with the Kazaviti discovery.
A decision on the feasibility of the new discovery is still pending and it will be appraised by the third planned sidetrack on the Prinos Alpha.
Key players involved
Dolphin Geophysical performed a 3D survey of the Prinos area. Energean purchased a rig, named Energean Force, from KCA Deutag and refurbished it completely for performing its drilling operation.
ERC Equipoise conducted an evaluation of the area’s reserves, contingent resources and prospective resources in December 2014.
LDK Consultants performed the impact assessment for the project.
