Cairn Energy PLC (LON:CNE) chief executive Simon Thomson described the company as “particularly pleased” with the performance of the Catcher oil field, one of two recently new North Sea field start-ups.
The other is Kraken which was the subject of the company’s in-house downgrade earlier this year amid lower than anticipated production volumes during ramp-up.
Together Catcher and Kraken delivered some 17,500 bopd of net production to Cairn, generating some US$395mln of revenue.
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Looking to the remainder of 2019, the company highlighted higher guidance with forecasts pitched at 19,000 to 22,000 bopd, and, it noted that the fields performance within that range over the first four months of the year.
“We are particularly pleased with the performance of Catcher, which is operating ahead of our expectations and where operating efficiency is excellent,” Thomson said in a statement ahead of today’s AGM.
“While we have reduced our reserve estimates for Kraken, we know what needs to be done to improve the performance of the field and we are working with the operator on several initiatives designed to increase the productivity of the assets on a sustainable basis.”
New growth is expected to come the key field development project offshore Cameroon, at the SNE project, and, at the Nova field development offshore Norway – though neither comes online this year.
SNE is targeted for a 2021 start-up while Nova is due in 2022.
“These two development projects are an important part of our strategy in sustaining and adding to our current cash flows over the medium and long term,” Thomson added.
“We also continue to replenish our exploration portfolio with assets that meet our stringent investment criteria.
“In 2018 this included adding a number of value-enhancing opportunities in new geographies including Suriname, Mauritania, Mexico and Côte d'Ivoire and working towards a material, exploration drilling programme in 2019 and 2020.”
Meanwhile, in regard to the long-running Indian arbitration process, the Cairn boss added: “there is no change in our outlook; we await the final determination from the arbitration panel and we continue to have a high level of confidence in the merits of our case.”