JUST weeks after announcing a $200 million project to tap additional gas supplies in Bass Strait’s Gippsland Basin, Woodside Energy and ExxonMobil subsidiary Esso Australia have signed off the drilling of five new wells in the Turrum and North Turrum gas fields.
The joint venturers’ new commitment, expected to cost $350 million, will come online by 2027 and may prolong the expected life of the onshore Longford gas processing plant. It had been expected that one processing unit would close by 2029 and the second by 2033 as the Basin’s resource is exhausted.
“While depletion of the Gippsland Basin is inevitable, projects such as Turrum will ensure Bass Strait continues to produce gas for the domestic market past 2030,” Simon Younger, Chair of ExxonMobil Australia, told Reuters in a statement also picked up by industry media.
Woodside’s executive vice president and chief operating officer for its Australian operations, Liz Westcott, confirmed the new venture would help to do just that.
“The Turrum Phase 3 project, and the recently approved Kipper 1B project, will unlock additional gas that is needed to avoid future shortfalls,” she said.
“Every molecule of gas Woodside supplies from the Bass Strait fields is sold into the Australian domestic market for local manufacturers, power generators and homes.”
The Kipper 1B Project, announced by the co-venturers in late February, will utilise the Valaris 107 jack-up rig to drill and install one subsea well into the Kipper field, with the project also involving significant upgrades to the West Tuna platform.
Kipper 1B follows the successful completion of the recent Kipper Compression Project, and the West Barracouta project that came online in 2021. No details of the execution of the Turrum and North Turrum plans have been released.
