Serinus Energy Inc. (“Serinus”, “SEN” or the “Company”) (TSX:SEN)(WARSAW:SEN) announces that it has resumed production at the Chouech Es Saida field in Tunisia. This field was initially shut-in on January 10, 2017, in anticipation of a three-day strike with production stoppage, as voted for by the Company’s employees at the Winstar Chouech Es Saida facilities, which began at midnight January 11, 2017. The labour action continued with a sit-in that persisted after the communicated work action, with the Company being unable to bring production back on line for safety and security reasons.
For the past two years, the Company has been engaged in ongoing dialogue with the Tunisia General Trade Union (“UGTT”) regarding the need for the Company to reduce operating costs at Chouech Es Saida due to the economic situation in the sector. Through ongoing dialogue between the Company and UGTT during this work action, the Company has agreed to resume production at Chouech Es Saida as an act of good faith in exchange for the ending of the sit-in and the agreement of UGTT to cooperate in the ongoing economic redundancy process. The ending of the sit-in on January 29, 2017, has removed the safety and security concerns the Company had in continuing operations of the Chouech Es Saida field and the cooperation of UGTT in the economic redundancy program provides the Company with sufficient encouragement to re-start production as a gesture of goodwill. The staff reductions of the economic redundancy program are necessary for the Company to further reduce operating costs and to remain a viable Tunisian employer and producer of hydrocarbons.
The Company has procured a replacement electrical submersible pump for the CS-3 well and anticipates that this pump will be delivered to the Company by mid-February 2017. With the delivery of the pump, the Company will begin a workover program on the CS-3 well and install the new pump in the well. It is estimated that the CS-3 well will back on production by early April, 2017.
About Serinus
Serinus is an international upstream oil and gas exploration and production company that owns and operates projects in Tunisia and Romania.
Market Wired
Comments are closed.