Woodside group’s Browse Gas Development plan seeks public comment

The Western Australian Environment Protection Authority (EPA) has opened the Woodside Energy Ltd. joint venture’s plan for its Browse to Karratha LNG/gas/condensate development for an 8-week round of public consultation.

EPA chair Tom Hatton said it was the first time the Authority was hosting a consultation platform on behalf of the federal government. He said the community would now have the opportunity to provide feedback on the separate state and federal assessments on the same web site at the same time.

The EPA has released Woodside’s environmental review documents which detail the environmental studies, impacts, proposed mitigation, and management for the project in both state and commonwealth jurisdictions.

Woodside proposes to develop the Browse resource (Torosa, Brecknock, and Calliance fields close to Scott Reef in the Browse basin) with up to 24 wells in state waters and 54 across both state and commonwealth waters using two floating production, storage, and offtake facilities that will transport gas to the existing North West Shelf Karratha LNG/domestic gas plant.

The gas will be conducted through a proposed 85 km spur line and a 900 km trunk line hooking into the existing North Rankin complex on the North West Shelf.

The component within state waters includes drilling, installation, commissioning, operation, and decommissioning of up to 24 subsea wells and associated infrastructure to extract gas.

The commonwealth component consists of the full project (including the state waters) incorporating 54 wells, two FPSOs, the spur line, and the main Browse to NW Shelf trunk line.

The EPA’s public consultation portal opened Dec. 18 and will close Feb. 12, 2020.

The Browse JV consists of Woodside as operator with 30.6%, Royal Dutch Shell 27%, BP 17.33%, MiMi 14.4%, and Petrochina 10.67%