UK: RWE Produces First Gas at Clipper South

RWE Dea UK, the UK subsidiary of RWE Dea, has said today that it has seen first gas from the Clipper South field in the UK North Sea.

Initial rates of production from the first well on the field are put at 1.2 million cubic metres per day, though this is expected to peak at 2.8 million cubic metres per day when the UKCS field goes into production in 2013.

The company said today that the production had been possible largely due to its use of hydraulic fracturing techniques at the field and said operations had benefitted massively from the technology.

"To reach this milestone, we benefited especially from our broad experience with fracture technology," Rene Pawel, Managing Director of RWE Dea UK said in a statement today.

RWE Dea UK, which is the operator of the field with a 50 per cent stake, is using five horizontal multifracture wells to access gas on the Clipper South field, which is estimated to have reserves in the Rotliegend reservoir of 13.4 billion normal cubic metres.

RWE is developing the field with three partners, Bayerngas Europe, which holds a 25 per cent stake, Fairfield Acer, which holds 24 per cent, and Fairfield Cedrus, which holds a 1 per cent stake.