Repsol Sinopec starts gas production at North Sea Cayley field

LONDON, June 28 (Reuters) - Repsol Sinopec said on Wednesday it had started gas production from a new field in the North Sea in a boost to the maturing basin just days after EnQuest (Frankfurt: 3EQ.F - news) brought a new oil field on stream.

The Cayley gas field in the central North Sea will, together with adjoining fields Godwin and Shaw, reach a peak production level of 40,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day (boepd), said the company, a joint venture between Spain's Repsol (Amsterdam: RP6.AS - news) and China's Sinopec (HKSE: 0386-OL.HK - news) .

The fields feed into the existing Montrose platform, which would have shut down this year without further investments. Repsol Sinopec has spent around 2 billion pounds ($2.6 billion) on bringing the new fields on stream and building a bridge-linked production platform.

The company said the project will add up to 100 million barrels of oil equivalent of extra production and ensure the Montrose facilities will operate for another 15 years.

The announcement comes just days after EnQuest started oil production from its 50,000 bpd Kraken field.

Oil and gas output from the North Sea has more than halved since its peak at the turn of the century, but production has rebounded slightly in the past two years as new projects authorised before the oil price crash have come on stream. ($1 = 0.7798 pounds) (Reporting by Karolin Schaps and Amanda Cooper, editing by Louise Heavens)