PARIS, Feb. 10 (UPI) -- French energy company GDF Suez said Monday it started oil production from the Amstel field using its new production platform situated off the Dutch coast.
The company said production from the Amstel field came less than three years after it declared the project a commercial prospect. It has the capacity to produce as much as 15,000 barrels of oil per day and have a production life of 10 years.
"Amstel confirms the skills of our technical team to manage and deliver fast track projects on budget," Jean-Marie Dauger, an executive vice-president of GDF Suez, said in a statement Monday.
The platform, dubbed Q13a-A, is the first of is kind for GDF Suez in the Netherlands. The platform sends crude oil through a 15-mile undersea pipeline to a nearby platform for processing before it's transported to an onshore refinery at the Port of Rotterdam.
"This new production from the North Sea illustrates again the capacity of GDF Suez, as an operator, to maximize the potential of such a mature region, to leverage the existing infrastructure and to deliver a complex and innovating project in a safe and responsible manner," Dauger added.
