The Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) has told Touch­stone Ex­plo­ration that it ex­pects to be ready to re­ceive first gas from the Cas­cadu­ra nat­ur­al gas and as­so­ci­at­ed liq­uids fa­cil­i­ty by the end of June.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease from Touch­stone the com­pa­ny was no­ti­fied on Feb­ru­ary 24 by NGC that they ex­pect to be ready to re­ceive first gas from Cas­cadu­ra on or about June 30.

“Touch­stone re­mains on track to com­plete the Cas­cadu­ra fa­cil­i­ty pri­or to this date to en­sure pro­duc­tion can com­mence as soon as NGC is in a po­si­tion to re­ceive first gas,” the re­lease stat­ed.

Touch­stone’s pres­i­dent and chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Paul Baay said, “We are en­cour­aged to have re­ceived an ex­pect­ed first gas date from NGC. Al­though this is lat­er than we were an­tic­i­pat­ing, we can now plan the fi­nal phase of our var­i­ous work streams to min­imise costs and op­ti­mise ser­vices.”

“First gas from Cas­cadu­ra will be a trans­for­ma­tive achieve­ment for Touch­stone, and we thank share­hold­ers for their con­tin­ued sup­port and pa­tience as we work to­wards this sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone,” Baay said.

He added that Touch­stone ex­pects that the funds raised late last year and its cur­rent base pro­duc­tion will al­low the com­pa­ny to com­plete drilling the Roys­ton-1X well and pre­pare its next de­vel­op­ment lo­ca­tions at Cas­cadu­ra while it fi­nalis­es con­struc­tion of the Cas­cadu­ra fa­cil­i­ty.

The re­lease al­so out­lined the ap­prox­i­mate con­struc­tion sta­tus of the Cas­cadu­ra fa­cil­i­ty.

It not­ed that the civ­il and con­crete foun­da­tion work for the main process fa­cil­i­ty equip­ment is com­plete; the flare stack is pro­cured, with the as­so­ci­at­ed foun­da­tion work com­menc­ing im­mi­nent­ly; the com­mu­ni­ca­tion tow­er is ap­prox­i­mate­ly 80 per cent com­plete; the pipe racks are ap­prox­i­mate­ly 90 per cent as­sem­bled with hy­drotest­ing ini­ti­at­ed, and the units are ex­pect­ed to ar­rive at the fa­cil­i­ty with­in the next three weeks.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, it de­tailed that the on-site con­den­sate tanks are ap­prox­i­mate­ly 65 per cent com­plete; the com­pres­sors, sep­a­ra­tors, and vapour re­cov­ery units have been safe­ly trans­port­ed to the fa­cil­i­ty; and all process equip­ment for the fa­cil­i­ty has been ac­quired.

Touch­stone Ex­plo­ration is a Cal­gary, Al­ber­ta-based com­pa­ny en­gaged in the busi­ness of ac­quir­ing in­ter­ests in pe­tro­le­um and nat­ur­al gas rights and the ex­plo­ration, de­vel­op­ment, pro­duc­tion and sale of pe­tro­le­um and nat­ur­al gas.

Touch­stone is cur­rent­ly ac­tive in on­shore prop­er­ties lo­cat­ed T&T.