KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 9): Hibiscus Petroleum Bhd expects oil prices to remain high over the next few months, providing a "sweet spot" for the oil and gas group after undergoing challenging conditions in the last two years.

"Our strategy is to grow by 'sweating' mature assets and developing proven opportunities within our portfolio," said group managing director Dr Kenneth Gerard Pereira.

"The recent project enhancements at the Anasuria Cluster have given us confidence to consider more complex execution of projects with higher levels of production upside."

"This is taking place as the industry expects crude oil prices to trend higher in the US$58 to US$68 range over the next few months," Pereira said at a media briefing.

Hibiscus hopes to increase oil production at Anasuria Cluster, its primary asset in the North Sea off the United Kingdom, by up to 56% over the next two years, to 5,000 barrels per day (bbls/day) from 3,204 bbls/day in its financial year ended June 30, 2017 (FY17).

This was on the back of the recently completed project enhancements at three wells at the Anasuria Cluster of oil and gas fields, designed to improve short- and medium-term performance to compensate for the expected production decline of such a mature asset, while seeking to improve health and safety aspects.

Two of the wells were shut by the previous operator due to high levels of hydrogen sulphide, which can corrode production infrastructure. They were back in production in January and July respectively and are expected to add an average of 315 bbls/day to the total production in 2017.

At a third well, Hibiscus installed gas lift facilities and was back in production on Nov 5, with the production rate expected to improve from an average of 60 bbls/day to 350/bbls per day.

Separately, there was a 31-day scheduled maintenance shutdown for Hibiscus's floating platform storage and offloading (Anasuria FPSO) facility from mid-September to mid-October, which was completed according to schedule. It is expected to improve the average unplanned facilities uptime of the Anasuria FPSO facilities up to 90% post-shutdown.

Pereira stressed that all these enhancements have resulted in an improved safety and health environment.

The group, he said, is developing its own Health, Safety and Environment Management System Standard.

Hibiscus's share price rose 1.5 sen or 2.08% to close at 73.5 sen, giving it a market capitalisation of RM1.13 billion.