News

October 01, 2009

“Just The Beginning” For Northern Petroleum As Grolloo And Geesbrug Ready For First Production In Q4

It’s taken rather longer than planned but Northern Petroleum’s collection of six oil and gas discoveries in the Netherlands are now nearing commercial production, with the first two fields due onstream before year-end. The AIM company made its debut in the Netherlands in the summer of 2005 and anticipated first production in 2007, although it quickly became apparent that the country’s glacial pace of official permitting and approvals could jeopardise this timetable.

Northern entered the Netherlands when it spied an opportunity to take over a series of undeveloped oil and gas discoveries and exploration prospects from NAM, a company jointly owned by supermajors Shell and ExxonMobil, a project that managing director Derek Musgrove had been tracking for some three years.

As Musgrove told oilbarrel.com back at the time of the deal, “these reserves are relatively small for organizations like Shell and ExxonMobil, which have much higher overheads on...