Petro-Canada's North Sea Pict Development Achieves First Oil

Petro-Canada's Pict development, located in block 21/23b in the United Kingdom (U.K.) Central North Sea, achieved first oil on June 19, 2005.

One hundred percent owned and operated by Petro-Canada, the Pict field is estimated to have resources of about 15 million barrels of oil. The Pict field, which had lain fallow for nearly two decades, was developed with sub-sea facilities tied back to the Triton floating, production, storage and offloading vessel (FPSO) via the Guillemot West and Northwest infrastructure. Pict is expected to produce an average of 10,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day over the next three years.

Welcoming the start-up of the field, Peter Kallos, executive vice president, International, said, "The Pict development demonstrates how through technical expertise and determination, fields previously thought too difficult or too small can now be produced. We developed Pict economically and profitably by optimizing the use of our owned infrastructure."

Petro-Canada invested approximately £81 million ($190 million Cdn) into Pict from field development to first oil. Since Petro-Canada's entry into the U.K. sector of the North Sea in 2002, the Company has invested about £909 million ($2.1 billion Cdn) in the region. The next U.K. development to come on stream is the Buzzard field, in which Petro-Canada has a 29.9% interest. First oil is due at the end of 2006 and plateau production of about 60,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day net to Petro-Canada is expected in late 2007.

"Pict will help us achieve our strategy of building profitable growth in our International business unit," said Mr. Kallos. "It's a credit to our team that in less than a year from the field development plan being approved, we achieved first oil successfully and safely."