Chariot completed front-end engineering and design for Anchois

Energy company Chariot has completed the front-end engineering and design (FEED) on the key components of its flagship Anchois gas development project, it announced on Wednesday.

The AIM-traded firm said the Anchois gas field is located within the Lixus offshore licence area offshore Morocco, in which it holds a 75% interest and operatorship alongside ONHYM, which holds a 25% interest.

It initiated the FEED for Anchois in June last year, and in conjunction with the subsurface development studies, it confirmed the individual components of the initial development.

That included three initial subsea producer wells, subsea infrastructure capable of delivering produced hydrocarbons from the wells to the onshore facilities, onshore central processing facility, and onshore gas pipeline.

Engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) commercial proposals had now been requested.

In addition to the FEED, other technical work had been progressing at the same time, including environmental, social impact assessment (ESIA) and field development plan (FDP) finalisation.

Additionally, Chariot said the development drilling planning was ongoing, which could further evaluate the potential of an additional 754 billion cubic feet of 2U prospective gas resources for “minimal” additional cost.

The targets identified had an independently-assessed geological chance of success ranging from 49% to 61%.

“We have made excellent progress across all aspects of our planned development for Anchois and detailed discussions on partnering, gas sales agreements and project finance continue concurrently as we move towards final investment decision,” said chief executive officer Adonis Pouroulis.

“The conclusion of the FEED stage, largely performed by the Subsea Integration Alliance (SIA), is an important step in defining the initial development plan to deliver gas to our anchor customers.”

Pouroulis said that in conjunction with the field development plan and environmental and social impact assessment work completed to date, the firm had “further cemented” the viability and commercial potential of the development founded on its “excellent” reservoir and gas properties, “favourable” location with regards to existing infrastructure, and the opportunity to leverage off existing, conventional technology.

“We remain fully focussed on taking the Anchois project to first gas in a way that can continually grow the resource and project scale and help unlock the basin scale potential that we see across our licence area.”

At 1127 GMT, shares in Chariot were up 3.34% at 15.45p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.