Esso Australia sanctions Gippsland basin gas project
Esso Australia Resources Pty Ltd. and partners have sanctioned the Kipper 1B project with a $200 million investment to bring online additional gas supply from the Gippsland basin, offshore Australia.
The VALARIS 107 jack-up rig will drill and install one subsea well into Kipper field. The project also includes significant upgrades to the West Tuna platform. Drilling is set to begin later this year, with upgrades to the West Tuna platform happening simultaneously.
Kipper 1B follows the successful completion of the recent Kipper compression project, and the West Barracouta project that came online in 2021.
Gippsland basin is in southeastern Australia about 200 km east of Melbourne. Most of the reservoirs contain siliciclastics of the Late Cretaceous to Paleogene Latrobe Group. Remaining reserves are estimated at 400 MMbbl of liquids and 6 tcf of gas. Subsea pipelines bring hydrocarbons to onshore processing infrastructure near Longford.
Esso operates assets in Bass Strait which form part of the Gippsland basin joint venture between Esso and Woodside, and the Kipper Unit joint venture of Esso, Woodside, and Mitsui.
Esso Australia is a subsidiary of ExxonMobil Australia Pty Ltd.
Alex Procyk | Upstream Editor
Alex Procyk is Upstream Editor at Oil & Gas Journal. He has also served as a principal technical professional at Halliburton and as a completion engineer at ConocoPhillips. He holds a BS in chemistry (1987) from Kent State University and a PhD in chemistry (1992) from Carnegie Mellon University. He is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE).