Northern starts production from Grolloo gas field

Northern Petroleum and its partners have announced they have started gas production from the Grolloo gas field, the first of four gas and two oil fields planned for development onshore the Netherlands. The Grolloo facilities have been commissioned and first gas sales commenced on December 4th, 2009 at a daily rate of 200,000 normal cmpd (7.4 mm cfpd).
Development of all four gas fields; Grolloo, Geesbrug, Wijk en Aalburg and Brakel will be completed by early next year. These will produce in aggregate daily rate of up to 800,000 cm per day (approx. 30 mm cfpd) in 2010. The Grolloo field is in the Drenthe IV licence.

This gas is the first production following the agreement between Northern Petroleum Nederland (NPN), a wholly owned subsidiary of Northern Petroleum, and Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij (NAM) in 2005. NPN, the operator has a 45 % licence interest with EBN, the Netherlands' state oil company and Dyas holding 40 % and 15 % respectively.
Chairman of the Executive Board of EBN, Jan Dirk Bokhoven said, "I am delighted with Northern's first successful development in the Netherlands. It shows there is still sufficient gas potential in the Netherlands and it is another step towards our goal of producing 30 bn cm from small fields by 2030."

Peter Veenhof, Managing Director Dyas also commented, "Dyas congratulates Northern Petroleum with this important milestone of reaching first gas on the Grolloo field. This is an important step into unlocking reserves from similar small gas pockets in the Netherlands that were previously considered not to be economically attractive."
Derek Musgrove, Managing Director, Northern added, "We have achieved our first objective in our plans to place four gas and two oil discoveries on stream in The Netherlands. Naturally, with shareholders I look forward eagerly for Geesbrug, Wijk en Aalburg and Brakel to be contributing to production revenues in the next few months -- weeks in the case of Geesbrug. At the moment we take joy at this accomplishment, which has been long awaited. We have had tremendous support from NAM and our partners EBN, and Dyas and would like to thank all those who have worked closely with us to reach this milestone."

"With this new production we have demonstrated our operational and organisational strengths, technical capabilities and ecologically sensitive approach. We will now work to increase production from our other five fields and expand further from this base."
"The profits from these six wells will assist Northern in driving both our exploration activities in Italy and re-drilling of three old discoveries in the Utrecht Licence even faster."

The Grolloo field alone is forecast to deliver initial revenues of approximately EUR 20 mm (EUR 9 mm net to NPN) based on an assumed gas price of EUR 0.20 per cm. The existing design facility is capable of considerably higher daily production rates. The decision on an increase to production rates will be made once flow rates have stabilised and once several months of production experience has been gained.
Gas from Grolloo is being delivered via a dedicated pipeline to the NAM operated Vries facilities and then on to the Westerveld process facilities. Geesbrug will be the next field to be brought on-stream employing a similar scheme of development.