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Equinor resubmits Great Australian Bight drilling plan
PROJECTS & COMPANIES
NORWEGIAN oil and gas developer Equinor has resubmitted its deepwater drilling plan for the Great Australian Bight to offshore reg- ulator National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA).
The company submitted the modified plan on November 29 and NOPSEMA has begun reassessing it, the regulator said on December 2. NOPSEMA requested the modifications on November 11, the second such request since the plan was originally submitted in April.
Equinor intends to drill the Stromlo-1 well in EPP39, which the company operates in con- junction with the adjacent EPP40. The well will be located 372km south of the coast and 476km west of Port Lincoln.
While the regulator said it was due to make a decision on the assessment by the end of December 5, it added that it would not make any announcements between December 21 and Jan- uary 5, 2020. The regulator has said it may make decisions prior to the deadline or opt to extend the assessment period if it determines that it needs more time.
The developer expects to begin drilling its Stromlo-1 exploration well in the southern hemisphere summer of 2020-2021 as long as it receives approval. The well will take around 60 days to drill, according to information provided by NOPSEMA, which has noted that the com- pany intends to use a mobile offshore unit sup- ported by three vessels.
Equinor’s country manager, Jone Stangeland,
said in a recent statement that NOPSEMA only accepted about 10% of plans on first submission and that the company had “always expected to work through an iterative process of resubmis- sion” before NOPSEMA signed off.
“We continue to engage with stakeholders and local communities regarding details of our plans,” he said.
The company says it has spent two years pre- paring the Stromlo-1 environment plan, which included co-funding the “most extensive base- line survey of the deepwater environments and met-ocean conditions of the Great Australian Bight ever carried out”.
The company, which acquired the two licences in June 2017, will take its next step after assessing the well results.
Week 48 04•December•2019 w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m P9
