Cape Town - South Africa's national oil company PetroSA said the start of gas production from its offshore Jabulani field has been delayed until the middle of 2012, a senior official said on Thursday.
The company had earlier forecast for gas production at the $650m project to start in 2011.
"It's taken more time to appraise the field and get all the engineering done and 2011 was a stretched target... we now anticipate first gas around mid-2012," Sandro Borean, PetroSA's regional manager for new ventures upstream told Reuters on the sidelines of an African oil conference in Cape Town.
Borean said the company has gained some time after it managed to strike a deal for the import of gas for its gas-to-liquids (GTL) Mossel Bay refinery which he said would be signed "shortly".
Borean said PetroSA expects to produce on average 100 million cubic feet of gas per day from the Jabulani project, with maximum daily production seen at 150 million cubic feet.
Borean also said the start of production at the Ibhubesi gas field off South Africa's west coast, in which PetroSA has a stake, was realistic only from 2013.
US gas explorer Forest Exploration International, which is developing the field, said in June that production was envisaged from 2012.
"2012 is a bit ambitious but 2013/2014 is realistic," Borean said.
- Reuters