Norwegian oil and gas company StatoilHydro has announced that its board has approved the Caesar Tonga Project in US Gulf of Mexico. Caesar Tonga is located just south of the Tahiti development which will come on stream in summer 2009.
According to the company, the Anadarko-operated Caesar Tonga development consists of three discoveries, Tonga and Tonga West which were acquired in 2005 as part of the EnCana acquisition and Caesar which was acquired from Plains in 2006.
The three discoveries have been combined into one project to be developed as a subsea tie-back to the Anadarko operated Constitution Spar. StatoilHydro has 23.55% working interest in the development. Other co-owners are Shell and Chevron, said the company.
The initial phase of development will consist of four wells with a combined average production of 40,000 barrels oil equivalent per day with first oil expected in 2011.
Earlier, in the first week of March  2009, StatoilHydro said that oil and gas have been encountered by the company in the Katla prospect, which lies 11 kilometres south-west of the Oseberg South platform operated by the group in the Norwegian North Sea. Proven recoverable volumes are 50-80 million barrels of oil equivalent, with the bulk of the resources occupying the Tarbert formation in the upper Brent group.
