The American Bureau of Shipping certified the buoy for loading at 23.57 hours on 4 March 2005. Repairs to another damaged anchor line will be carried out once loading of this tanker has been finished. No further disruptions to loading operations are anticipated as a result of these repairs, according to Oil Seach.

Following the curtailment of production from the Kutubu, Moran and Gobe fields, due to oil storage nearing capacity, Oil Search accelerated maintenance activities on the Kutubu Central Processing Facility, the Kutubu refinery and the Agogo and Gobe production facilities. This work was originally scheduled to occur over a two week period in May 2005.

Critical work completed during this period included repairs to the flare and preliminary tie in work for the SE Mananda development. Several other general maintenance items were also completed and it is now expected that the May shut down period will not be required.

Production at Kutubu, Moran and Gobe has restarted and is being progressively increased as storage becomes available.

Field performance is expected to be strong in the medium term, following this period of low production, and will benefit from repairs and modifications made over the past two weeks, according to Oil Search.

The company estimates that the loading interruption at Kumul resulted in the deferral of about 575,000 barrels of production net to Oil Search.

It is anticipated that, through improved field performance and an accelerated loading schedule, a large proportion of this will be recovered during the year.

The company said while production and revenues in the first quarter of 2005 would be negatively affected, total production for 2005 would be in the range of the previous guidance of between 11.5 – 12 million barrels of oil equivalent.