Development begins in Natuna Sea’s Block A

Development has begun at the Bison, Iguana and Gajah Puteri gasfields offshore Indonesia, local media reported on Thursday.

Located close to the Anambas islands, the assets are part of the Natuna Sea’s Block A. An EPCI agreement between the UK’s Premier Oil and the fields’ operator Timas Suplindo marked the start of the project.

“This is an important progress of this project. It showed that the upstream industry of oil and gas in the country is still active, despite the fact that global oil prices have not yet recovered,” Wisnu Prabawa Taher, spokesman for upstream regulator SKK Migas, said in a statement cited by the Jakarta Globe.

Forecasts predict the development will yield some 1.7 mcm (60 mcf) per day of gas and 1,100 boepd once online. The development is expected to be completed by Q3 2019. All told, the fields will increase Indonesia’s gross deliverable gas reserves by 2.27 bcm-2.83 bcf (80 bcf-100 bcf).