THE COMPANY acquiring the notorious Montara oil field in the Timor Sea off the coast of northern Australia from Thailand oiler PTTEP, has announced that maintenance, testing and completion works at the field have now been completed and operations are expected to resume following an enforced shutdown by Australia’s regulator in November.

Facilities are currently undergoing the final stages of pressure testing to ensure asset integrity and production safety and the company is awaiting regulatory approval to restart production from the well.  

Repairs, maintenance and testing have been underway since the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority  slammed operator PTTEP with a stop order and forced the platform shut down at the Montara Venture FPSO after the regulator discovered a "number of operational issues".  

The FPSO oil train has been successfully leak tested and the gas train is now being tested so that both can start together and allow for immediate gas-lift and gas-reinjection to optimise production operations as rapidly as possible.  

"I'm pleased that the shutdown of Montara assets has been safely concluded, which now completes all overdue inspection and maintenance items which we identified during the initial weeks after closing the transaction with PTTEP," Jadestone CEO Paul Blakeley said.  

"During the shutdown, Montara personnel logged more than 9,000 hours of work, all executed without a single safety incident." 

Source: Energy News Bulletin

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