Rockhopper Exploration plc’s partner in the Sea Lion discovery has had phased work, including 64 wells, set out in a revised independent report on the North Falkland Basin project.
PHASES
Israel-headquartered operator Navitas Petroleum LP, targeting a final investment decision for mid-2025, commissioned the independent resource report from Netherland Sewell & Associates (NSAI).
“The report reflects work carried out to mature the resource base and accelerates later phases of the development programme in the build up to FID,” said Rockhopper which has yet to review the report.
“As a result of the work carried out, a significant number of barrels have been moved from ‘development on hold’ to ‘development pending’ classification.”
The Sea Lion and the Isobel-Elaine fan complexes are within licences PL032 and PL004.
Sea Lion sits in around 450m of water with more than 500 million barrels of recoverable oil on a 2C basis.
The March 2025 NSAI report focused on development of the Northern area with three phases, and the Central area with two.
The first two phases in the Northern area will use a redeployed and upgraded floating production storage and offloading vessel to be secured on a final investment decision.
Phase I comprises 11 wells with six pre drilled targeting 170mmbbls, phase II will have 12 wells for 149mmbbls while phase III has 16 wells for 95mmbbls.
The Central area’s phase I will have 12 wells targeting 212 mmbbls and phase II will have 13 wells for 102 mmbbls.
Peak production rate for phases I and II will be 55,000 bbls/day, increasing up to 150,000 bbls/day once all phases are developed, with the total barrels developed in all phases will be 730 mmbbls.
Rockhopper noted that the Northern area’s phase III and the Central area’s two phases would need a “substantially larger” replacement FPSO.
The development on hold category of 178 million barrels of 2C resources includes gross resources within Sea Lion and Isobel/Elaine, which as yet has no published development plan.
Navitas’ estimated capital expenditure to first oil on phase I is $1.4 billion.
The operator has entered into “a number” of front end engineering design agreements, a memorandum of understanding for an FPSO currently operating in the North Sea, and has “various” agreements for subsea equipment.
Rockhopper, with a 35% working interest, aims to commission its own independent resource evaluation due to be published later this year.