US independent Anadarko Petroleum expects first production by 2014 from its high-profile Lucius discovery in the Gulf of Mexico with an estimated oil-equivalent resource of 300 million barrels and a development cost of $2 billion, the company's vice president of worldwide exploration, Bob Daniels, said Wednesday.
In addition, Anadarko also anticipates nearby exploration opportunities that can turn the planned Lucius production facility at Keathley Canyon 875 into a "mega project" for the Houston-based company.
Lucius is located adjacent to ExxonMobil's recently announced discoveries at its Hadrian complex, also located in Keathley Canyon.
"We announced a unitization agreement with Exxon in the Gulf of Mexico that will lead to sanctioning later this year," Daniels said, in reference to the connection between Anadarko's Lucius and ExxonMobil's Hadrian complex.
Daniels made his remarks during a presentation to the Enercom 2011 Oil and Gas Conference in Denver and monitored by webcast.
Under terms of that unitization agreement announced July 18, Anadarko will operate the development facility with a 35% working interest that will produce from both Lucius and ExxonMobil's Hadrian South field.
In announcing that agreement, Anadarko said it already has ordered long-lead items including the truss spar floating production facility for a capacity of 80,000 b/d of oil and 450,000 Mcf/d of natural gas.
Anadarko's partners in the Lucius production agreement include Plains Exploration & Production Company with a 23.3% interest, ExxonMobil with a 15% interest, Apache with an 11.7% interest, Petrobras with a 9.6% interest and Eni Petroleum with a 5.4% interest.
Daniels said the gas handling agreement for production from Hadrian will be "very advantageous" to the economics for Lucius.
Beyond Lucius, he said Anadarko has recently secured three new permits for additional drilling this year at deepwater prospects Cheyenne East, Heidelberg and Deep Nansen.
"We have confidence now on how long it's going to take," Daniels said of the controversial permit process that has been moving slowly since the moratorium following last year's Macondo crisis.
But Daniels said Anadarko expects to have permits and be drilling at a total of five more deepwater targets this year and six to eight more in 2012.
