Shell, Total agree to swap that includes Shell’s 17% stake in big Tahiti discovery

Shell and French-based Total have agreed to an onshore-offshore property swap in which Total will end up with Shell’s 17 percent stake in Tahiti, one of the largest deepwater discoveries in the Gulf of Mexico, and Shell will end up with Total gas assets in South Texas, the companies said Nov. 17.

Shell, which inherited its position in Tahiti as part of the company’s 2002 acquisition of big E&P independent Enterprise Oil, would acquire Total’s operated interest in three natural gas fields and additional interests in a fourth field operated by Shell. The fields would nearly triple Shell’s daily production in South Texas to 300 million cubic feet of gas equivalent from 107 million cubic feet per day.

In exchange, Total would pick up a significant chunk of the Chevron-operated Tahiti field, an April 2001 offshore discovery believed to contain reserves upward of 500 million barrels of oil equivalent. Located on multiple blocks in Green Canyon, the field is located in roughly 4,100 feet of water about 190 miles southwest of New Orleans.

Tahiti is scheduled to come on-stream in 2008 from a floating production facility capable of handling 125,000 barrels of oil and 70 million cubic feet of natural gas per day.

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