Financing has been arranged for the Van Gogh and Pyrenees oil developments offshore Western Australia, each to be produced from subsea manifolds to a floating, production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel.
The Van Gogh project, located about 40km north of Cape Range Peninsula, mostly in permit WA-155-P, is expected to commence production in 2Q 2009. With an estimated field life of 12-15 years, Van Gogh is operated by 52.5% stakeholder Apache in joint venture with Inpex Alpha.
US independent Apache reports that is has arranged $350 million in financing for Van Gogh and the BHP Billiton-operated Pyrennees project, and expects its share of oil production from each of these developments to be around 20,000b/d.
The Pyrenees fields Crosby, Ravensworth and Stickle were discovered in WA-12-R in water depths of 170-250m about 25km north of Cape Range Peninsula. They have estimated recoverable reserves of between 80-120mmbo, producible over a projected 25 years.
The $1.7 billion Pyrennees development is due to start up in early 2010. BHP Billiton has a 71.43% stake in WA-12-R with Apache holding the balance.