Cepu Block Encouraged to Increase Production by 30 Thousand BPD

The Special Task Force for Upstream Oil and Gas Business Activities (SKK Migas) targets Cepu Block oil production to increase by 30 thousand barrels per day (BPD) in 2024. The Oil and Gas Block is the government's mainstay to increase national oil lifting.

Cepu Block 

Head of SKK Migas Dwi Soetjipto said, in order to pursue the target of producing 1 million BPD of oil by 2030, his office was trying to accelerate efforts to increase production. 

ExxonMobil Cepu Limited (EMCL) in Cepu Block

    Some of these strategic efforts were implemented in the Banyu Urip Field, the Cepu Block managed by ExxonMobil Cepu Limited (EMCL). Of the three strategies implemented in the block, it is targeted to have an additional production of more than 30 thousand BPD in 2024.

"We hope that this additional project will be completed on time so that additional production from the Banyu Urip field can be realized in 2022," Dwi said.

Dwi Soetjipto

This was the result of Dwi Soetjipto's meeting with EMCL President Louise McKenzie on Wednesday (March 11). From the results of the meeting, it was found that the potential of Banyu Urip could still be increased through three strategies to reduce the rate of natural production decline. The first strategy is to monetize associated gas to eliminate bottlenecks of oil production in the Banyu Urip Field.

Second, the addition of insert wells to produce oil from carbonate reservoir areas that have not been produced. Finally, in line with the transformation of SKK Migas in the Resource to Production (R to P) acceleration strategy, namely proving its upside potential in the Banyu Urip Field.

According to SKK Migas, there is the potential for additional reserves that are shallower than the reservoir currently produced. Therefore EMCL will conduct an evaluation to drill appraisal wells to add data on rock characteristics and reservoir productivity. Until now, various optimizations in the Banyu Urip Project have proven to contribute more to Indonesia.

One of them is an increase in reserves of the Banyu Urip Field which is more than doubled compared to the first field development plan or POD, from 375 million barrels to 940 million barrels. In addition, Cepu Block oil production was also successfully increased by 33% from previously 165 thousand BPD to 220 thousand BPD. Furthermore, efforts are currently underway to increase production to 235 thousand BPD.

Investor Daily, Page-9, Tuesday, March 17, 2020