AsianOil: Eni starts up Indonesian deepwater gas field

Italian major Eni has started producing natural gas from its deepwater Merakes project in the East Sepinggan block offshore Indonesia.
The company said on April 26 that the project had a guaranteed production capacity of 450mn cubic feet (12.74mn cubic metres) per day thanks to its five subsea wells.
East Sepinggan is located in East Kalimantan’s Kutei Basin in around 1,500 metres of water. Eni operates the block with a 65% stake, while Neptune Energy owns 20% and Pertamina holds the remaining 15%.
Merakes has been tied back to a floating production unit (FPU) at the Eni-operated Jangkrik field, which is located 45 km away in the Muara Bakau block. Eni said the new field had been connected to the FPU via subsea pipelines, thereby optimising the facility’s 750 mmcf (21.24 mcm) per day of production capacity. 
After Merakes’ gas has been processed, it is then exported to an onshore receiving facility (ORF) in Senipah via Jangkrik’s existing export pipelines. Jangkrik produces gas from 10 subsea wells.
Eni said the new production would feed both domestic demand while also extending the life of the ageing Bontang liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant. State-owned Pertamina operates the export terminal, which is the country’s first having been built in 1977. Eni sent its first shipment of Jangkrik produced LNG from the Bontang plant to Bali in 2017.
Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi hailed Merakes’ launch while also highlighting the production synergies achieved through the tie-back. The executive said: “Merakes is one of Eni key projects in 2021. It will support the growth of gas production, in line with Eni strategic goals.”
Neptune Energy’s managing director in Indonesia, Eko Lumadyo, said Indonesia provided his company with “strong opportunities for growth”.
He added: “We have identified significant exploration potential in our acreage in the Kutei Basin, which offers considerable growth potential through tie-back and standalone developments.”
East Sepinggan’s licence was switched from the cost-recovery production-sharing contract (PSC) model to the gross split PSC system in December 2018.
In addition to their partnership in East Sepinggan, Eni, Neptune and Pertamina are developing the West Ganal PSC. The licence also lies in the Kutei Basin adjacent to the Jangkrik and Jangkrik NE fields and includes the Maha discovery, which is estimated to have more than 600bn cubic feet (16.99bn cubic metres) of in place gas resources.