Heritage Looking to Maximise Mature Fields

• Heritage Petroleum CEO Erik Keskula says asset improvement is needed for the company to get the most out of its mature fields. He made the comments while speaking during a panel on the second day of the T&T Energy Conference, which took place at the Hyatt Regency, Port-of-Spain.
• Keskula said innovation and technology can be used to access such improvement, explaining, “Utilising things like wireless and remote monitoring to reduce the mean time to respond when a well goes down or a facility goes down, but working closely with the members of the community, partnerships with our service companies to do that and these assets, actually have some advantages.”
• However, he noted that when working in these mature areas there are two advantages - being a bridge to big projects as the existing infrastructure is already in place and the capital has already been spent for that infrastructure so they tend to be less capital intensive, meaning the economics can look a little bit better and be delivered faster.
• Keskula also added that as work continues to improve, recovery factors with technology and modernisation, there remains real opportunity to leverage those mature fields to be “the bridge for the big projects on the horizon.
• Meanwhile, Mala Baliraj, chair of the Energy Chamber of T&T, who spoke on day one of the conference, noted that the industry is rapidly changing and the skills needed in the sector are being transformed through digitisation, automation and artificial intelligence. She advised there must be greater focus on programmes that invest heavily in training new young people entering the industry, as well as retraining the existing workforce.
• The issue of improving the ease of doing business is also crucial if we are to create the climate for investment in production, decarbonisation and people, she highlighted.

(Source: Trinidad& Tobago Guardian)