Catcher Operational Update

The enclosed announcement has been reported by Premier Oil plc (Operator) with regards to the Catcher development in which Cairn has a 20% working interest.

Premier Oil plc

Premier is pleased to provide the following update on its operated Catcher Area development, which was successfully brought on-stream on 23 December 2017.

The first export cargo of Catcher oil of approximately 500,000 barrels was lifted yesterday, earlier than anticipated, and has been sold at a premium to Brent. The second cargo, which is scheduled for the third week of February, has also been sold at a similar premium to Brent.

To date, four production wells – two from the Catcher field and two from the Varadero field – have been brought online. Initial rates from these four producers totalled in excess of 60 kbopd and, as planned, these wells are being deliberately constrained at an average of 20 kbopd whilst final commissioning of the gas processing modules on the FPSO is completed.

Performance of the BW Catcher FPSO has been excellent with high operational uptime. Commissioning of the water injection system has been completed. Gas commissioning is progressing well with the gas import/export pipeline now fully open to the SEGAL pipeline and booster compression test runs successfully concluded. The next stages of gas treatment and export compression commissioning will now follow with the switch to fuel gas for the main power generation and ancillary boilers set to commence this week. Once the gas systems, including gas export, are fully available, production will be brought on-stream from the Burgman field and full production from the Catcher Area is planned to increase to 60 kbopd. This remains on schedule for Q2 2018.

The full Operational Update can be found on the Premier Oil website.

Enquiries to:

Download PDF

Catcher operational UPDATE

NOTES TO EDITORS

Cairn is one of Europe's leading independent oil and gas exploration and development companies and is listed on the London Stock Exchange. Cairn has discovered and developed oil and gas reserves in a variety of locations around the world.

Cairn’s business operations are now focused on frontier exploration acreage in North West Europe, North West Africa and the North Atlantic, underpinned by interests in development assets in the North Sea. Cairn has its headquarters in Edinburgh, Scotland supported by operational offices in London, Norway and Senegal.

For further information on Cairn please see: www.cairnenergy.com