The Ministry Of Energy And Mineral Resources Agrees On The Revision Of PoD, Oil Fields Near Malaysia Will Be Drilled

Illustration. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - The Special Task Force for Upstream Oil and Gas Business Activities (SKK Migas) together with Prima Energy Northwest Natuna Pte. Ltd. (PENN) has completed the discussion on the revision of PoD (Plan of Development) I for the Ande-Ande Lumut Oil Field (AAL).

The revision of the PoD for the Ande-Ande Lumut Oil Field (AAL) has received approval from the Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Arifin Tasrif on March 5, 2024.

For your information, the AAL oil field is a field with heavy oil characteristics located in the waters of the West Natuna Sea, 20 km from the Malaysian border and about 260 km from the nearest land (Matak, Anambas).

Deputy for Exploration, Development and Management of the SKK Migas Working Area, Benny Lubiantara said the development of the AAL oil field was quite challenging.

In addition to remote location factors and in border areas. The nature of oil in these reservoirs is the type of heavy oil and there is a tendency for the layer to have a social problem that requires special handling so that the required operational costs are relatively high," he said in an official statement, Thursday, March 28.

Benny said the AAL field was one of the hopes to increase national oil production, considering the increasing demand for oil.

"AAL's field will also be one of the backbones in an effort to achieve the oil production target of 1 million barrels," he explained.

Risk mitigation efforts related to these matters are stated in the revision of PoD where project implementation is carried out in two stages. The scenario of production facilities using CPP (Central Production Platform) and FSO (Floating, Storage, and Offloading).

This concept is a change from the previous concepts using WHP (Well Head Platform) and FPSO (Floating, Production, Storage, and Offloading).

The initial stage of AAL development will involve installing platform jackets and drilling seven horizontal production wells to produce oil from both layers (K and G sand).

Meanwhile, the CEO of Prima Energy Northwest Natuna, Pieters Utomo, emphasized that PEN will continue to be committed to developing this AAL Oil Field until it reaches production by the end of 2026 with a production target of 20,000 bopd.

Pieters said the challenge from the AAL Oil Field was in the form of reservoirs that were unconsolidated sand and heavy oil, thus requiring long horizontal well drilling and a special lower complement well in order to limit water and sand production.

"We believe that using new proven technology from other heavy oil fields will be successful for AAL Field," he said.

Pieters also appreciated the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources and SKK Migas for their collaboration so that the approval of the revision of the AAL Oil Field PoD was achieved. According to him, the cooperation will continue so that this project runs smoothly according to the plan

"PENN will also conduct further studies related to exploration activities on existing prospects to increase reserves and resources in the Northwest Natuna Working Area," he said.