OilOnline Manager posted on 12/8/2009
The Australian government has nudged Woodside Petroleum towards its favoured choice for the landing site and LNG facility for the Browse Basin deepwater project (SEN, 26/12) based on gas from the Brecknock, Calliance and Torosa fields off the northwest coast.
Under the retention conditions for seven leases made by the government, Woodside and its partners has 120 days to agree to using the Kimberley area as the location for the onshore facilities unless it has an alternative that it can prove is more commercially viable.
The James Point Precinct on the Kimberly peninsula is already the licence group's favoured option, part of which is based on the fact that the pipeline to shore would be only 350km rather than the more than 1,000km to Pluto LNG onshore facilities, the other option.
The other conditions for licence retention include committing A$1.25bn to the project within 30 months; begin basic design some time in 2010 with FEED the following year and the final investment decision in 2012.
This project - based on reserves of 400bcm and 370mmbbls of condensate - has the potential of being one of the most complex being proposed.
With the reservoirs in areas of 400-700m, it will feature at least two floaters - likely to be tension leg platforms or spars to support some dry wellheads - to start with a third to come in a later phase with some separation and dehydration plus up to 60 subseas wells; a shelf platform complex in 80-120m with one facility for offshore processing, one for compression and a condensate offloadiing buoy; plus a 350km pipeline to shore to the new LNG facility.
(Meanwhile...From Australia (RW): Fugro Geos is to conduct a year-long meteorological and oceanographic study along the proposed route of the pipeline for the Browse LNG project.
The study will involve an onshore meteorological measurement programme and a near-shore and offshore metocean measurement program. Fugro will deploy about 20 current meter moorings in water depths of 8-200m along with two OCEANOR Wavescan buoys, three directional wave-riders, long-period wave recorders, tide gauges and surface current drifters. Fugro will also install a 30m meteorological tower onshore to establish baseline measurements.)
Woodside which is pegging much of its future production based on a massive growth in LNG demand now has two options for its Greater Sunrise (SEN, 26/13) development, although both are based on as many as 26 subsea wells.
One is a floating LNG facility (4mt/a) with four production areas and seven subsea wells to start. It could be moored in waters ranging from 180m to 400m. The alternative is an fpso moored in a similar location but with nine wells to start and a 540km 34in pipeline to an LNG plant in Darwin.
FROM SUBSEA ENGINEERING NEWS
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