Oil and gas giant Shell has started oil production much earlier than estimated on its new platform in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of the United States. The company says it is months ahead of the original schedule.

The new Appomattox platform, in which Shell has a 79 percent interest, is expected to be good for a production of 175,000 barrels of oil equivalents per day. Shell emphasizes that with the start-up of the platform, the company has also remained well within the intended budget.

Shell already took the investment decision on the Appomattox in 2015. In the light of the estimate at the time, the costs were ultimately 40 percent lower. That is in line with other development costs for deep-water projects that Shell managed to reduce in recent years. The remaining 21 percent of Appomattox is owned by CNOOC.