Project Profile
Location: Midia Block in the Romanian sector of the Black Sea, Romania
Exploration start-up: 1995 (Shallow ) 2012 (Deep)
Production start-up: 2019 (Shallow)
The Ioana prospect is situated in the Midia Block in the Romanian sector of the Black Sea, which Sterling Resources wholly owns and operates. The drilling of the Ioana-1 well is complete and abandonment operations are being conducted. Following these operations the rig will be moved to the second exploration well location, Eugenia-1, some 70 km to the north. This well will be the first to be drilled in the oil prone Pelican Block and is estimated to take approximately 30 days to complete.
In 2014, Sterling Resources carved out a deepwater portion of Midia and sold the acreage to ExxonMobil and OMV Petrom in a deal which included a US$29.25 million contingent payment for successful exploration and development, plus US$19.5 million on first production. It later reached agreement to sell the rest of Midia to Carlyle International Energy Partners.
In March 2017, OMV Petrom and ExxonMobil announced they would surrender the Midia Deep concession to instead focus on the Neptun Deep area. The decision was taken because exploration works did not uncover viable resources in the area.
On April 11, Carlyle announced it had awarded a contract for two exploration wells at Midia (shallow block) to be drilled with GSP Offshore’s GSP Uranus jack-up rig. The wells will be drilled in water depths of up to 100 metres from the fourth quarter of 2017, and GSP will also provide back-up services. The award follows a FEED contract sealed with Xodus Group in November 2016.
The shallow water Midia gas development will extract from the Ana and Doina discoveries.
Xodus will construct a well-head platform at water depths of 69.5 metres at Ana, which will tied back subsea from the Doina well, and controlled via an umbilical. It will also include an onshore pipeline to a new gas treatment plant to be constructed 5 km away. Ana and Doina were discovered in 1995 and 2007 respectively and hold an estimated 320 billion cubic feet of contingent gas resources.
Operators:
Deep (To be withdrawn)
-----
ExxonMobil
OMV Petrom S.A
Shallow
---
Carlyle International Energy Partners (CIEP): 65%
Petro Ventures Europe BV: 20% interest
Gas Plus International BV: 15% interest
Contractor:
Grup Servicii Petroliere (GSP): Drill exploration wells
Xodus Group: (FEED)