IN THE NEWS / How Sweet It Is - Hibernia
11/17/98
St. Johns Evening Telegram
Hibernia Management and Development Company Ltd. will celebrate the first anniversary of first oil today with a little cake, a little more drilling and a little over 20 million barrels of light, sweet crude.
Oil production on the $5.8-billion, 1.2-billion-tonne platform started about four weeks ahead of schedule on Nov. 17, 1997.
“We've produced — actually loaded — 23 tankers; that's right around 20 million barrels,” HMDC president Harvey Smith said in an interview Monday. “We're on track to get to our (target of) 25 million by year-end. We have to average something like 100,000 to 125,000 barrels a day to get there. I'm convinced we'll get to that.” Smith credited Hibernia's staff with keeping things on target.
The company will also be looking at increasing Hibernia's maximum capacity beyond 150,000 barrels per day some time in the spring, he said.
“We plan to be at our peak rate in the first quarter, (which is) a bit earlier than planned,” he said, “We need to do some work this fall and in the spring to see if we want to go beyond the designed production rate.”
It will require some further study and possibly some capital investment, Smith said.
Although Hibernia has not officially reduced its total cost-per-barrel from $12.95 US — which is close to today's price of oil — Smith said the number is based on a total of 615 million barrels in the reservoirs and will come down if the amount of recoverable oil can be increased.
Mobil Oil has already bumped up its estimates of recoverable oil to 750 million barrels.
Production costs at Hibernia are actually around $2 per barrel, Smith said.
The company has also achieved significant improvements in drilling, he said, and can now drill the four or five kilometres to the Hibernia reservoir more quickly.
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