|
ConocoPhillips finds gas field off Australia, near LNG plant
ConocoPhillips has found a new gas field not far from its nearly completed LNG production complex in Darwin, Australia.
The Caldita No. 1 well, spudded July 7, found “a significant hydrocarbon column in a high-quality reservoir interval,” the company said Sept. 28. A drill stem test showed gas flowing at a rate of 33 million cubic feet daily on a one-inch choke.
The well, drilled to a total depth of 13,120 feet, will be plugged and abandoned, the company said. The well was drilled in the Timor Sea in about 450 feet of water.
The site is about 165 miles north-northwest of Darwin, where ConocoPhillips is just finishing its liquefaction plant for the Bayu-Undan field, which just began to flow gas to Darwin. Second train could be added Bayu-Undan can provide gas to the Darwin facility at its initial capacity of 161 billion cubic feet a day for 17 years, but ConocoPhillips and its partners could add a second train to handle Caldita gas. The plant is about 90 percent complete and is expected to start production early next year, sending all its LNG to Japanese utilities.
Caldita is only about half as far from Darwin as the Bayu-Undan field. It’s in Australian waters, so there’s less political complexity than the joint arrangement with East Timor and Australia at Bayu-Undan.
The company says it is continuing technical work to evaluate the potential of Caldita, where ConocoPhillips is operator and holds a 60 percent interest. Australia’s Santos Offshore Pty. Ltd. holds the remaining 40 percent.
Santos has estimated Caldita could hold 1.5 trillion cubic feet of gas. Near Caldita is a Santos-operated find, Evans Shoal, which is said to contain 6.6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas but hasn’t yet been developed. ConocoPhillips is also an owner of the Woodside-operated Greater Sunrise undeveloped field in the Timor Sea northeast of Bayu-Undan
—Allen Baker
| 