Page 9 - AsianOil Week 30 2021

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Santos celebrates

infill drilling success

PROJECTS & AUSTRALIAN developer Santos has said natu-
COMPANIES ral gas production from the first well of the Phase
3C infill drilling programme at the Bayu-Un-
dan field offshore Timor-Leste has exceeded
expectations.
The first well has been brought online at
178mn cubic feet (5.04mn cubic metres) per
day of gas and 11,350 barrels per day of liquids.
Santos said the field’s liquids production had
climbed to more than 25,000 bpd as a result.
The Noble Tom Prosser jack-up rig has begun
drilling the second of the three wells, with the
programme slated for completion in early 2022.
Santos managing director and CEO Kevin
Gallagher said: “We are delighted to see first
production from the 3C programme, which
is immediately delivering value to both the
Bayu-Undan joint venture and the people of
Timor-Leste, and importantly helps extend the
life of Bayu-Undan and the jobs and investment
that rely on it.”
Santos operates Bayu-Undan with a 43.4%
interest, while SK E&S owns 25%, Inpex holds
11.4%, Eni has 11%, JERA owns 6.1% and Tokyo
Gas has 3.1%.
Gallagher added that the first well had
delivered a “better than expected reservoir
outcome” and pointed to successful results
across both the well’s primary and secondary
targets that were at a far higher initial gas pro-
duction rate than anticipated. wells, which was producing “at the highest ini-
The successful drilling and tie-in of the first tial rate from an individual well in field history”.
of three new wells comes six months after San- Following completion and tie-in, the company
tos reached a final investment decision (FID) noted that the well had yielded oil at a peak rate
on the project . of 23,200 bpd.
Santos signed off on the $235mn infill drilling The Van Gogh field is located offshore West-
programme in January as a means of minimising ern Australian in the WA-35-L permit and is tied
Darwin LNG’s downtime between when Bayu-Un- into the Ningaloo Vision floating production,
dan had been forecast to run dry and the antici- storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel alongside
pated start-up of the Barossa gas project. the nearby Coniston and Novara fields.
The Santos-led consortium developing the Gallagher said: “We have seen an excellent
Barossa natural gas and condensate field, which reservoir outcome from this first well with a
lies offshore Australia’s Northern Territory, larger oil column than expected and a total
reached an FID on the $3.6bn project in March. horizontal section of 5,430 metres, which is 490
The president of Timor-Leste upstream metres more than originally planned. This is also
regulator Autoridade Nacional do Petroleo the highest peak production seen from a single
e Minerais (ANPM), Florentino Soares Fer- well in the Van Gogh field, and exceeded our pre-
reira, said: “Managing the mobilisation of drill expectations.”
the crews between Bayu-Undan and hotspot The Valaris MS1 mobile offshore drilling unit
areas during the pandemic has been a chal- is now expected to complete the remaining two
lenging task, but with great synergy between wells over the next few months, with start-up
the operator and ANPM, the Phase 3C oper- anticipated before the end of the year.
ation has been smooth.” Van Gogh came on stream in in 2010, while
The news of Bayu-Undan’s drilling success Coniston and Novara began producing in 2015
came hot on the heels of similar success at the and 2016 respectively.
Van Gogh Phase 2 Infill Development. Santos operates the Van Gogh-Coniston-No-
Santos said on July 26 that first oil had been vara project with a 52.5% stake, while Inpex
produced from the first of three new production owns the remaining interest.v

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