THE FUTURE of Bass Strait gas production suddenly looks much brighter with an Esso Australia project nearing completion which will extend the life of Gippsland Gas Basin well into the next decade.
The ‘Kipper Compression Project’ according to Esso is a significant extension of production from the existing field.
“Enough to supply Victoria with natural gas (on its own) for a year.”
This major project requires the installation of compression facilities on the West Tuna platform to maintain production from the Kipper field which will experience decreasing reservoir pressure as it depletes.
Esso Australia has also progressed its decommissioning work program and has so far completed the permanent plug and abandonment of one hundred and twenty offshore oil wells using two platform-based rigs, a multi-purpose support vessel and a light well intervention vessel.
Three subsea facilities, Seahorse, Blackback and Tarwhine have already been successfully removed.
Plug and abandonment has been safely completed on Whiting and significant well decommissioning activities have progressed on Kingfish B, Fortescue and Mackerel.
Esso is pumping down the equivalent of a twenty-storey-high mountain of concrete to cap the decommissioned wells’ pressure tested to more than five hundred psi.
“The Bass Strait field employs hundreds of skilled workers and this is likely to continue,” says Esso Australia.
On any given day around five hundred workers are employed offshore including decommissioning operations.
The Longford plant will continue to supply gas to Melbourne.
Such was the excitement in the early sixties when Esso BHP burst onto Gippsland ready to explore and exploit one of the world’s richest oil and gas fields few could have predicted oil production would come to an end within one generation.
When Esso Australia’s giant VALARIS 107 ocean-going deconstruction rig arrives in Bass Strait from Australia’s Northwest Shelf it will be supported offshore from the Barry Beach Marine Terminal.
VALARIS 107 is a heavy-duty modern jack-up rig contracted by Esso Australia operator of the Gippsland Basin Joint Venture to undertake decommissioning activities across the offshore operations.
Commencing work within weeks VALARIS 107 will be utilised to complete the plug and abandonment work of twenty-six wells across three platforms and five subsea locations.
“The VALARIS 107 is critical to Esso Australia’s overall decommissioning strategy in Bass Strait and we’re very pleased to add the jack-up rig to our fleet of offshore assets,” said an Esso spokesperson.
“By the end of the year we will have completed almost two billion dollars of early decommissioning works across our offshore operations and the arrival of the VALARIS 107 will play a pivotal role in the safe plug and abandonment of our wells,” says Esso.
“The giant legs of VALARIS 107 can be extended to the ocean floor allowing decommissioned rigs to be lifted right out of the ocean.”
The VALARIS 107 will be put to task completing the plug and abandonment of twenty-six wells across three platforms; Bream B, Perch, Dolphin and five subsea locations; Mulloway, Whiptail, Marlin-
1, East Pilchard-1, Halibut-1.
Esso Australia is currently proposing several onshore and offshore activities in Bass Strait and is working with South Gippsland communities to find solutions that balance environmental impacts with the needs of the community.
Esso has conducted sessions in Welshpool and Foster with more sessions planned over the coming months.
Consultation provides an opportunity for people or organisations who may be affected by petroleum activities to raise concerns, including objections or claims about the potential impacts of the activity, to seek information about how they may be affected, or how Esso Australia intends to manage the activity to ensure the associated impacts are as low as reasonably practicable.
All offshore petroleum activities must have an Environment Plan accepted by the respective Commonwealth and State Regulators before they can take place.
Activities with an onshore component may require additional regulatory approval such as referrals, permits and licenses accepted by relevant regulators.
Special interests that may be affected can include cultural and spiritual connections to the sea or the protection of specific marine species.
The National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) explains that the protection and preservation of the marine environment is best achieved when there are opportunities for the community to participate in the environmental approvals process through consultation.
Consultation on offshore petroleum activities is a two-way process according to NOPSEMA where information is shared between titleholders and relevant persons providing an opportunity for people or organisations who may be affected by an offshore petroleum activity to raise concerns including objections.
Esso has been producing oil and gas in Bass Strait since 1969 supplying over half of Australia’s crude oil requirements and just under half of all eastern Australia’s natural gas.
Although the Bass Strait production network has been producing energy for more than fifty years it remains today the largest single source of gas supply to the Australian east coast domestic market and has the potential to continue supplying one-third of southeast Australia’s domestic gas demand well past 2030.
Esso BHP discovered the Barracouta gas field in Bass Strait in 1965.
Within two years of discovering oil in Bass Strait Esso and BHP were under pressure to begin oil and gas production from the Marlin and Barracouta fields with pipelines to a gas processing plant at Longford which was already being built.
The Victorian Premier at the time Sir Henry Bolte committed fourteen million dollars in the 1967-68 State budget to extend the natural gas pipeline to Melbourne.
A strike by thirty-five welders from the Boilermakers and Blacksmiths Union in September 1968 stopped work on the gas pipeline in protest over highly skilled Italian welders receiving lower pay than their Australian counterparts.
Australians were being paid eighty-eight dollars for a forty-hour week while the Italian workers were only receiving seventy-seven dollars for a six-day week.
When the first gas flowed in March 1969 a revolution began with households in Gippsland able to access the Longford to Dandenong pipeline replacing their old briquette and open fireplaces with modern, inbuilt, clean natural Gasglo space heaters providing instant heat.
Half a million households and businesses were converted to natural gas in just two years creating a major concern at the time that the Longford to Dandenong pipeline held only sufficient gas to supply Melbourne for five days.
Even today Longford still supplies the lion’s share of Melbourne’s natural gas needs providing sixty-five per cent of daily production augmented by the Otway Basin with eighteen per cent and a small gas production plant at Lang Lang supplying three per cent.
For further information regarding the public comment process for the oil and gas rig decommissioning and other activities go to corporate.exxonmobil.com/locations/australia/our-approach or contact consultation@exxonmobil.com
