Total starts up Badamyar project

France’s Total announced on Tuesday that it had brought the Badamyar offshore project, some 220 kilometres south off Myanmar, on stream.

The gasfield is meant to be a satellite of the nearby, Total-operated Yadana field, and to extend the latter’s production plateau of 8 bcm (283 bcf) per year past 2020, the company said in a statement.

Total is the operator of the project and holds an interest of 31.2%, along with partners Chevron-Unocal (28.3%), PTTEP (25.5%) and Myanmar’s MOGE (15%).

“Completed on schedule and with costs 20% below budget, this second start-up by Total in 2017 demonstrates our capacity to effectively implement cost reduction programs,” Arnaud Breuillac, Total’s President for Exploration & Production, said in a statement.

In March, Total launched the final phase of the Moho Nord project offshore Congo.

“This project underscores Total’s commitment to develop gas projects to provide Myanmar and Thailand with affordable, reliable and clean energy to support the countries’ economic growth over the coming years,” Breuillac added.

In other news from Total, the company told Reuters it was still assessing the damage from an accident at a Samsung Heavy Industries shipyard in South Korea on Monday, which killed 6 and injured 20. A crane fell on the Martin Linge oil platform, scheduled to be installed in Norway this summer.

“It’s too early to say how this would affect the platform’s delivery,” a Total spokesman told the agency.