Australia-based oil producer Triangle Energy has experienced a technical issue with one of the wells at its Cliff Head oil field located offshore Australia, which has caused the well to stop producing.
The Cliff Head oil field is located in the Perth Basin about 270 kilometers north of Perth and 12 kilometers off the coast of Dongara in Western Australia, at a water depth of 15-20 meters.
The field is produced via an offshore platform connected to the onshore Arrowsmith Stabilisation Plant by twin 14km production and injection pipelines. Crude oil is trucked to BP at its Kwinana refinery south of Perth.
Triangle Energy is the operator and majority owner of the field with a 78.75% interest, with Royal Energy holding an interest of 21.25%.
Triangle informed on Wednesday that a technical issue has occurred during steady state production operations which has caused production well CH13 to stop producing. It has been confirmed, by both company and service personnel, that the issue is associated with the downhole electric submersible pump, Triangle added.
Whilst CH13 remains offline the company anticipates production to stablize at approximately 750 bopd from the other four producing wells.
Triangle experienced a similar issue with the downhole electric submersible pump on another well last year. Namely, a technical issue with the pump caused well CH12H to stop producing back in May 2018. The production from the well was not restored until October last year .
In addition, in July 2018, Triangle’s Cliff Head was hit by severe weather and sea conditions resulting in a loss of produced fluid and the interruption to production . The incident was classified as a low-level oil spill, in the range of zero to 10,000 liters.