Triangle Shuts in Production from Two Cliff Head Wells

Australia-based oil producer Triangle Energy has shut-in production from two wells on its Cliff Head oil field located offshore Australia.

Triangle said on Thursday that production from Cliff Head 7 Well (CH7) was shut-in as a precautionary measure during routine operational maintenance on Wednesday, 17 June.

This enabled integrity testing of the lower completion part of the well and allowed a forward remediation plan to be approved and implemented in the immediate future.

The company is evaluating the options to return CH7 to production at the earliest opportunity, including a near-term return to production and a workover pre-scheduled for October 2020.

Production from CH6 was also shut-in on Wednesday due to an electrical submersible pump (ESP) failure. Triangle is investigating the cause of the failure.

As a result, Triangle Energy’s planned work programme for the 2021 financial year on CH6 and CH7 has been expedited and the schedule brought forward to resolve these “common production challenges.”

The company anticipates production to stabilise at approximately 590 bopd from the other primary producing wells until maintenance issues are resolved.

Cliff Head technical issues not a rare occurrence

Triangle had to suspend production from the Cliff Head Alpha platform in February when it observed an electrical fault during routine maintenance. It restarted production at the platform in mid-March.

Last year, a technical issue with the downhole ESP at one of the wells caused it to stop producing.

A similar issue affected another well in 2018. 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 that year.

Also, in the summer of 2018, Triangle’s Cliff Head was hit by severe weather and sea conditions resulting in a loss of produced fluid and interruption to production. The incident was classified as a low-level oil spill, in the range of zero to 10,000 litres.

Cliff Head has more potential

It is worth noting that Triangle Energy identified three key opportunities that could be drilled and developed from the existing Cliff Head Alpha platform.

According to the company, the drilling opportunities were identified during the Cliff Head Renewal Project.

Triangle also clarified that the total number of opportunities was actually five, with two of them being longer-term development prospects.