Offshore staff
Offshore West Australia –A number of big LNG projects with production sourced offshore northwestern Australia are making progress toward start-up. Following is a recap of the current work:
Pluto Foundation project
Pluto LNG Foundation Project construction is in its final phase with commissioning and production start up of sections of the offshore and onshore production systems is progressing to plan.
Offshore, the Pluto A platform was declared ready for start up in November and the subsea well commissioning campaign was completed during December. Subsequently, gas from the Pluto reservoir flowed into the Pluto trunkline and is being held at the beach valve, ready to enter the plant.
Onshore, the jetty, storage and loading facilities are operational, and, subsequent to the end of the quarter, unloading of the commissioning cargo commenced. This commissioning cargo is being used to cool down the LNG tanks and the LNG transfer lines in preparation for LNG processing. In preparation for the LNG train start up, testing and independent running of major process equipment is largely complete. No material change is anticipated to the previously advised first cargo target date.
During the quarter, the Cadwallon-1 (WA-434-P) and Genseric-1 (WA-434-P) exploration wells were drilled and the Ragnar-1 (WA-430-P) well was spudded. A further three exploration wells are yet to be drilled in this current campaign.
Vucko-1 (WA-433-P) will be drilled during the first quarter and this will likely be followed by a well in permit WA-389-P and a well in WA-269-P. Plans are not to proceed with the development ofXeres (WA-34-L) at this time, therefore Xeres-1 and Xeres-1A have been expensed in the fourth quarter.
Discussions continue with other resource owners regardingdevelopment of additional trains at Pluto.
Browse LNG project
In December, Woodside advised that it was seeking amendments to its Browse basin retention leases, including a request to vary the condition relating to readiness for a final investment decision by mid-2012.
The joint venture has since written to the Joint Authority and the WA Minister for Mines and Petroleum requesting variations to the retention lease conditions such that a final investment decision may be considered in first half 2013.
During the period, the Draft Upstream Environmental Impact Statement was completed and issued for public review and comment. A Field Development Plan also was issued to the regulator as required under the retention lease conditions.
Front-end engineering and design studies continued during the quarter. Geotechnical studies at the Browse LNG Precinct were demobilized for the wet season.
Invitations to tender were issued for downstream engineering, procurement and construction;modular platform drilling rig; dry tree unit delivery; and a number of pipeline contracts.
The 2011 ocean bottom cable 3D seismic survey over the Torosa field was safely and successfully completed.
North WestShelf
North Rankin redevelopment project
Following the successfulNorth Rankin B (NRB) jacket launch in September, piling activity to secure the jacket to the seabed is ongoing. In Korea, fabrication of the NRB topsides was completed and the 23,000-metric tonne (25,353-ton) topsides are loaded onto the transportation barge ready for sail-down to the North West Shelf.
In Indonesia, fabrication of the NRA-NRB bridges was completed and the bridges have been loaded onto the transportation barge ready to move to NWS. The project remains on budget and on schedule for completion in 2013.
Vincent FPSO purchase
In December 2011, the joint venture participants purchased theNgujima-Yin FPSO from Maersk FPSOs Australia A/S. Woodside plans to assume full operatorship in late 2012. The acquisition will facilitate plans to extend the field life at Vincent and allow continuing reliability and availability improvements.
To implement these improvements it is anticipated that the FPSO will be taken offline for several months in the later part of 2012. The production outlook for 2012 has already taken this planned shutdown into consideration.
01/24/2012
