Jadestone updates market on Montara Venture restart

Asia-Pacific focussed oil and gas producer Jadestone Energy updated the market on its operations at the Montara Venture floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel on Thursday, located offshore Australia.

The AIM-traded firm said that after its announcement on 31 August, production at the Montara Venture resumed on 1 September.

After resumption, initial production rates averaged around 1,000 barrels per day, sourced from a single well.

That production came about while the vessel's oil production and gas compression systems were in the recommissioning phase.

However, as additional wells were activated in the subsequent days, there had been a notable surge in production figures.

Current rates were reported at around 8,000 barrels per day, including a portion of flush production.

Jadestone Energy said it expected that in the coming days, average production at Montara would stabilise, reverting to its standard pre-shutdown output of around 6,000 barrels per day.

Moreover, the ballast water tank 4P had been successfully restored to service after undergoing thorough inspections and necessary repairs.

Concurrently, the company said it was making arrangements to fix a previously-identified defect found between the oil cargo tank 5C and the ballast water tank 4S.

Further inspections in tank 4S were currently in progress.

“The company will now utilise a smaller and lower cost shuttle tanker to provide additional storage during a period of time when the FPSO storage capacity is constrained,” the Jadestone board said in its statement.

At 1437 BST, shares in Jadestone Energy were up 6.76% at 39.5p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.