Production trend

The determination of RWE Dea and Wintershall, back in the 1980s, to invest millions in the development of domestic oil reserves is paying off today. The initial estimates for the Mittelplate reserve potential were repeatedly corrected upward over the course of the project. In addition to the 24 million mt of crude oil that have already been produced, based on the data available today there still are some 20 to 25 millions mt in technologically and commercially recoverable reserves.

Ever since production from Mittelplate commenced, annual production rates have been increasing continually thanks to an ongoing optimisation programme for the drilling, production and transportation concept. Production peaked in the years 2002 to 2007, at over 2 million tons per annum. Due to the advanced state of depletion of the deposit, production started to decline from 2008.

Production for whole of the year 2011 is expected to be about 1.43 million tons. The decisive factor in this increased production is the Mittelplate A23 multilateral well. It is now becoming clear that investing in new production technologies will ensure that production can be maintained at a higher level for an extended period of time.

The chart shows the production trend from 1987 to 2011