Blocks 210/19a and 210/20a South Otter Prospects

Serica 100% (operator)

This Production Licence was awarded to Serica in the 26th Round of UK Offshore Licensing. It occupies an area of approximately 185 square kilometres in the Northern North Sea which, in recent years, has seen an upsurge in drilling activity resulting in a number of discoveries.

Serica holds 100% equity in Blocks 210/19a and 210/20a and is offering a significant portion in return for funding an exploration well. The prospects are within a few kilometres of the producing Otter Field which has produced 50 million barrels of oil to date. The Otter discovery well flowed over 4,700bbls/d on test and the field flowed at over 27,000bbls/day on initial production. The SW Otter prospect has P50 reserves of 30 million barrels with a C.O.S of 38%. An exploration well is estimated to cost £10 million (dry hole cost) but, on success, can also be side-tracked into the Otter SE (central) prospect for an incremental cost of £5 million to investigate further P50 reserves of 16 million barrels with a C.O.S. of 32%.

The Otter SW and SE prospect reservoirs are Mid Jurassic, Brent structural tilted fault block and down-thrown hanging-wall traps with well-defined source, reservoirs and migration pathways. The prospects are ideally located near existing infrastructure. The Otter Field has proven the development concept of a subsea tie-back to Eider, which has spare capacity and can provide the necessary production services, such as power and water injection. The oil quality is expected to be excellent, 36°API crude and the prospects would be produced with water injection and ESP’s to enhance recovery.