News

December 09, 2009

Northern Petroleum Hails Milestone As The Grolloo Field Comes Onstream In The Netherlands – With Five More Still To Come

It’s been a long time coming but Northern Petroleum has now brought onstream the first of the six discoveries in The Netherlands it bought from NAM, a Shell/Exxon joint venture, in 2005. The Grolloo gas field started producing at a rate of 7.4 million cubic feet per day on December 4th, with the Geesbrug field set to join it within weeks. The remaining two gas fields, Wijk en Aalburg and Brakel,will be onstream by early 2010, taking aggregate production to 30 million cf/d. Northern has a 45 per cent operated interest in the project, alongside state oil company EBN with 40 per cent and Dyas with 15 per cent, providing the kind of uplift in production and revenue that will set it apart from many of its AIM peers.

The two oilfields, Ottoland and Papekop, will start producing later in 2010, although Northern backers shouldn’t be too surprised if this timetable slips as it is dependent on the company receiving the necessary permits from the slow-moving Dutch authorities (the permits are for a long term production test at Ottoland and a new well at Papekop). 

Northern has learnt to deal with the near-glacial pace of permitting in the country.  “Every niche has a problem and the problem here is...