BP aiming at 4 million barrels a day by 2020

BP expects to grow its production to 4 million barrels a day by the end of the decade.

During the Annual General Meeting on Wednesday, the company’s Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg said that with BP’s recent recent investments, “in a few years’ time, our production should be back at the same level as before we had to sell a third of our assets to cover the Gulf costs.”

BP was forced to sell off billions of worth in assets to pay for the claims and penalties arising from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon rig explosion that killed 11 workers and spilled millions of barrels of oil into the ocean.

“We must never forget the events of 2010. They are part of us, they are who we are and they will help shape our future. And our future lies in our strategy. And in growing the company,“ Svanberg said.

7 projects in 2017

To help achieve its production target, BP expects to bring seven major projects to production this year, and more from 2018 onwards.

“We have two of these seven projects on line already, with two more imminent – including our big Quad 204 project in the UK – and we are right on track to deliver all seven by the end of the year,” BP CEO Bob Dudley said.

BP is redeveloping the Schiehallion and Loyal fields as part of its Quad 204 project, located 175 km west of Shetland. Schiehallion and Loyal have produced nearly 400 million barrels of oil since production started in 1998. The Quad 204 development aims to access the remaining estimated 450 million barrels of resource still available.

“In addition to these seven projects we have another nine on track for start-up from 2018 onwards, with construction on average, ahead of schedule and 15% under budget. Together with our recent portfolio acquisitions, these projects are expected to deliver an additional one million barrels of new production a day by 2021 compared with the 2015 base.”

“When our share of Rosneft production is added in, BP should return to being around a 4 million barrel a day business by the end of the decade. To be clear, that volume is a measure of the confidence we have in our portfolio,” Dudley said.

The oil company’s hydrocarbon production in 2016 was 3 million barrels of oil equivalent per day and 3.2 mmboe/d in 2015.

Offshore Energy Today Staff