Trident Energy celebrates its fifth anniversary with five major successes
This month marks half a decade since Trident first launched in 2016. We started life with a small but dedicated team of 12, a grand plan and financial support from Warburg Pincus. Five years on, we have expanded into two new continents, invested heavily in our skilled workforce, and brought sustainability and safety to new heights within the business.
We thought that this milestone was a great opportunity to reflect on five key highlights over the past five years:
Growing our team
From a team of 12 people in London when we launched Trident Energy in 2016, we now have close to 400 staff on three continents and became an operator in 2017 with the acquisition of the Ceiba and Okume fields in Equatorial Guinea.
We have been operating for almost four years in Equatorial Guinea and managed to demonstrate our capability to rejuvenate declining mid-life assets, through production optimisation, debottlenecking our facilities, implementing technology and developing subsurface modelling to support the redevelopment of the assets. This led to our first drilling campaign on Elon in 2021.
In 2020, we crossed the Atlantic and acquired the Pampo and Enchova fields in the Campos Basin off the coast of Brazil, in a prolific basin with many potential further opportunities to consolidate our position. As operator of all 10 concessions in the Pampo and Enchova fields, Trident owns 100% of the working interest. We completed this acquisition during a difficult time, with the COVID-19 pandemic and low oil prices creating significant disruption.
Since the take-over, our focus has been on upgrading the facilities through an extensive integrity campaign, and we used this time to rework the subsurface and identified multiple production optimisation projects that are about to be implemented.
Enabling our team to grow and develop in Brazil has also been an incredible journey, and our commitment to nationalising expertise and upskilling our workforce across both Equatorial Guinea and Brazil means that our expert team has really been able to thrive.
Boosting production
In the Ceiba and Okume fields off the coast of Equatorial Guinea, we managed to reduce the natural production decline by 50% without relying on expensive projects, and we expect the current ongoing campaign to bring production back to 2017 levels, at the time of our takeover. In fact, cumulative oil production since the takeover has risen 26%, resulting in an additional 10.6 million barrels of oil produced compared to the previous operator’s forecasts.
In Brazil, the goal is to reach a stable 30,000 bopd by year end, but we see multiple opportunities to increase beyond this level, with a target of 40,000 bopd in the near term. In Brazil, we will implement the same methodology that made our efforts in Equatorial Guinea such a success, through production optimisation, debottlenecking and drilling.
With Ceiba & Okume on one side, and Pampo & Enchova on the other, we are in an ideal position to continue our journey to bring new life to existing mid-life assets.
Safety and Sustainability
Safety and sustainability are at the heart of what we do. Our recent Sustainability Report not only details our efforts over the past five years, but also our ambitious plans for the future.
One particular highlight over the past year has been the time spent without any lost time incidents across our fields. Our Brazilian operations have marked over 200 days without an LTI, whilst the teams in Equatorial Guinea have recorded over 500 days since the last LTI. Strong growth comes with strong responsibilities, and our teams’ commitment to safety is without doubt a celebrated accomplishment over the past five years.
Trusted partnerships
Our progress over the past five years would not have been possible without the commitment of our staff, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thanks to our employees, we’ve managed to build a new E&P company, which is trusted by the governments where we operate, by our partners, by our main shareholder Warburg Pincus and by the dozens of international banks who support our efforts and business model.
Planning for the future
Sixteen fields, 10 platforms, 3 exploration blocks, 2 continents and 1 FPSO later, we have come a long way since 2016.
Between our operations in Equatorial Guinea and those in Brazil, Trident is now an established Exploration and Production company. We are well known, respected, trusted, and have proven our capabilities as an operator of mid-life assets in water depths up to 800 meters.
But we need to look to the future. And the next five years will bring excitement, challenges, growth, and satisfaction.
More than ever, we have the technical expertise, financial capabilities, the willingness and the support from our shareholders to deliver more growth, more subsidiaries, more projects. Personally, I am immensely proud of the team we managed to put together, and the reputation we have built since we started this extraordinary journey in 2016.
Many thanks to all our employees, investors and partners for being part of the Trident Energy family over the past half-decade. Here’s to the next five years!
Jean-Michel Jacoulot, CEO of Trident Energy Management Limited, September 2021
