Woodside authorizes novel welding process for Goodwyn pipelines offshore Western Australia

Woodside has issued an update on the Goodwyn Low Low Pressure Operation (LLPO) project offshore Western Australia’s Pilbara coast.

The company will install a new compressor on the Goodwyn A (GWA) platform to increase production. The facility, 10 km northwest of Dampier, has produced dry gas and condensate since 1997 from the Goodwyn, Perseus and Searipple fields.

It is part of the Woodside-operated North West Shelf Project.

The platform can accommodate up to 30 production wells, including five re-injectors, with a daily production capacity of up to 36,000 mt of gas and 11,000 mt of condensate.

All production is transported via subsea pipelines to Goodwyn A and on to the Karratha Gas Plant for further processing.

Due to natural reservoir depletion, a first compression train was added in 2005 under the GWA Low Pressure Operation for pressure boosting. The latest investments, sanctioned last year, will add further compression to counter continued natural pressure decline.

“We need more compression power on the facility in order to transport the gas up to the onshore plant,” said engineering manager Helen Bigland.

Woodside has also submitted a proposal to the regulator, NOPSEMA for the proposed GWF4 infill project, which would tie back resources from fields close to the Goodwyn platform to existing GWA subsea infrastructure.

LLPO will add about 1.3 km of new subsea piping. The original goal had been to eliminate all hot work from the installation, using only flanges or Destec hubs; however, these also present potential for a gas leak.

The original design entailed a large number of flanges; Woodside now plans to authorize hot work at certain locations, using robotic and orbital welding to reduce the number of personnel normally needed for traditional manual welding.

Effee in Norway designed this technology for welding onsite offshore pipelines. In late 2023, following a presentation by the company, Vinay Lonial, Woodside’s principal mechanical engineer Projects Australia, identified the potential for the GWA LLPO compressor piping.

The joint venture partners agreed to support funding of a technology qualification program with support from Huiwen and DNV; this demonstrated that robotic welding could achieve code-compliant welds in a special-purpose, portable and safe habitat.

Woodside and contractor Wood will jointly undertake engineering, procurement and construction, including the front-end engineering and design. It should take 18 months to fabricate the compressor and piping, and the platform will be shut down this year for tie-ins.

Hook-up of the compressor will follow in 2027 during the scheduled LLPO turnaround program. The platform will be shut down before production resumes in stages, with startup targeted in second-quarter 2027.