Woodside advances projects offshore Africa, Australia, and Latin America
Woodside Energy Group Ltd. expects production from its Sangomar, Scarborough, and Trion developments in 2024, 2026 and 2028 respectively. The company is also adjusting its approach to Trinidad and Tobago as its shallow-water fields there near end-of-life.
Sangomar, 100 km offshore of Dakar, Senegal, is the most advanced of the three projects and Woodside is targeting first oil from it mid-2024, according to remarks made at its investor briefing day. Fourteen of the field’s planned 23 wells have been completed and the drilling results are in line with expectations, the company said. First-phase development will target about 230 million bbl of oil.
Subsea work, including about 125 km of flowlines and risers, is roughly 96% complete. Topsides integration and pre-commissioning work on the project’s floating production, storage, and offloading vessel (FPSO) is continuing in Singapore. Earlier this year, Woodside increased Sangomar’s development costs and moved first oil to its current timing after identifying remedial work required on the FPSO (OGJ Online, July 18, 2023).
Woodside said Scarborough, 375 km off the Pilbara coast of Western Australia, is approaching 50% complete, with 44 of the 51 modules for Pluto LNG’s 5-millon tonne/year (tpy) Train 2 under construction in Batam, Indonesia. Site construction in Karratha is also underway.
The company earlier this year let an engineering, procurement, and construction management contract for Pluto Train 1 modifications to KBR Inc. The work will allow Woodside to process 3 million tpy of Scarborough gas through Train 1, which currently liquefies gas from Pluto and Xena fields (OGJ Online, Sept. 25, 2023).
The project’s floating production unit (FPU) is being fabricated in China with delivery expected in time to meet Scarborough’s targeted 2026 startup. Woodside is installing the first 32 km of Scarborough’s export pipeline in Western Australia waters.
The company took final investment decision (FID) on Trion earlier this year and subsequently received approval for the project from Mexico’s Comision Nacional de Hidrocarburos (OGJ Online, Aug. 30, 2023). Trion is in the Perdido fold belt, Gulf of Mexico, 180 km off the Mexican coastline and 30 km south of the Mexico-US maritime border.
Its development is targeting 479 MMboe of best estimate (2C) contingent oil and gas and being undertaken with Pemex Exploración y Producción (40%). Woodside said it has begun detailed engineering for major scopes of work, including the 100,000-b/d Trion FPU, scheduled to begin fabrication in Korea next year.
In Trinidad and Tobago, where Woodside has been operating since 2005, the company said itincreased daily production of its late-life fields by about 10%, converting gas injection wells into production wells. It also added perforations to capture gas from unswept reservoir zones and adjusted operations to reduce back pressure on wells.
Woodside continues to advance its Calypso gas project, 220 km off the country’s northeast coast in 2,100 m of water, having selected an infield host as the preferred development concept. The project is in a region with existing infrastructure.
Woodside acquired the asset as part of its 2021 merger with BHP Group Ltd. Appraisal drilling took place in the fourth quarter of that year via the Bongos-3, Bongos-3X, and Bongos-4 wells (OGJ Online, Oct. 19, 2021). It has estimated resources of 3.2 tcf.
