The Woodside Petroleum Ltd. group has started up the final stage of the original scope of operations planned for Australia's Northwest Shelf gas megaproject.
Start-up of the long troubled $2 billion (Australian) Goodwyn A production platform in Goodwyn giant gas/condensate field marks a watershed in the Northwest Shelf project, which produces gas from giant North Rankin field for export as liquefied natural gas. Japanese utilities buy 7 million tons/year of LNG from the project.
Goodwyn A marks the end of the originally planned scope of the Northwest Shelf project. Northwest Shelf joint venture partners now are turning to identification of additional gas reserves to extend and expand existing gas supply contracts with domestic and foreign buyers.
Initial emphasis at Goodwyn is condensate recovery, with Goodwyn gas at first reinjected into the reservoir at a rate of 900 MMcfd to maintain reservoir pressure and maximize condensate recovery. Goodwyn gas reserves are estimated at 3 tcf and condensate at 235 million bbl.
A single Goodwyn A well is on production. Plans call for drilling 11 more wells in the field to push production to a peak of 80,000 b/d by mid-1996. The field is expected to produce for 30 years.
Gas and condensate are processed on Goodwyn A and moved 23 km via pipeline to the North Rankin platform. Production then is moved via a 135 km, dual phase pipeline to the processing/LNG complex on Western Australia's Burrup Peninsula. Goodwyn condensate is exported.
The platform started up 16 months behind the original schedule after platform damage caused during piling operations resulted in extensive repairs costing $320 million.
Woodside expects condensate to contribute about $600 million/year to the project's export earnings.
Equal partners in the Northwest Shelf project are operator Woodside, BHP Petroleum (Northwest Shelf) Pty. Ltd., BP Developments Australia Ltd., Chevron Asiatic Ltd., Japan Australia LNG (MIMI) Pty. Ltd. joint venture of Mitsubishi Corp. and Mitsui & Co. Ltd., and Shell Development (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
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