www.xcite-energy.com
Xcite Energy Limited is a heavy oil appraisal and development company, with current interests in three licence blocks in the UK North Sea, all of which are held with 100% working interests through its wholly-owned UK subsidiary, Xcite Energy Resources Limited.
Its primary focus is in bringing the Bentley oil field on Block 9/3b into production and in doing so becoming a significant independent oil producer in the North Sea by 2014.
Watch Xcite Energy's May 2012 Corporate Video here.
DECC confirms its support of Xcite Energy’s Bentley oilfield development
The UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has confirmed its support for Xcite Energy’s (LON:XEL, CVE:XEL) field development plan for the Bentley oilfield.
Xcite expects the DECC to approve phase 1 of the development in the near future.
Xcite will then be able to start work in sufficient time to achieve first oil in the first half of this year, it explained.
The Bentley field development plan was submitted to the DECC back in August. In December, however, it reconfigured its approach to the development by splitting the first phase into two parts - 1A and 1B.
In a statement this morning Xcite told investors that it believes that all of the DECC’s broad operational and planning questions, regarding Phase 1A and 1B, have now been addressed by the company.
However a number of detailed questions on technical matters are currently in the process of being resolved. The company says this will be completed as a matter of due process.
In the meantime the DECC has issued a ‘letter of comfort’ to Xcite which confirms its support for the field development plan. The DECC is broadly satisfied with the phased development approach from a resource recovery perspective, Xcite said.
The formal approval of the Bentley field development plan is now subject to funding and any amendments to the FDP that may be proposed by XER following the results of Phase 1A.
It is expected that Xcite will re-submit the field development plan to DECC in the second half of this year.
The DECC has agreed that the Phase 1A work programme will be managed through the conventional well operations notification system (WONS).
“It is the company's expectation that DECC will give its approval for the Phase 1A WONS in the near future, enabling XER to commence the 2012 drilling programme and achieve an expected First Oil date in the first half of 2012,” Xcite said.
The company also explained that the already completed environmental statement for the plan is expected to be completed within a similar timeframe to the WONS, and it doesn’t expect to re-submit the statement.
Furthermore, based on the DECC’s ‘letter of comfort’, Xcite says it still expects it will be able to convert the currently assigned contingent resources into proven and probable reserves.
