Australian Barossa Offshore Project Proposal Open for Public Comment

The Australian National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) has published the Barossa Area Development Offshore Project Proposal (Barossa OPP) for public comment, ConocoPhillips said July 13.

ConocoPhillips Australia Exploration and its co-venturers, SK E&S Australia and Santos Offshore is proposing to develop discovered hydrocarbon resources located in waters approximately 300 kilometres north of Darwin, Northern Territory. 

Barossa is an offshore gas and light condensate project that proposes to provide a new source of gas to the existing Darwin LNG facility, subject to suitable commercial arrangements being put in place. The development concept includes a floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) facility, subsea production system, and a gas export pipeline.

ConocoPhillips’ Australia West president Chris Wilson said existing infrastructure owners are assessing several options to backfill DLNG from 2023 when the current offshore gas supply from Bayu-Undan is expected to be exhausted.

NOPSEMA released the Barossa OPP to provide the public with the opportunity to comment during the project’s early design phase. 

The Barossa offshore development area encompasses petroleum retention lease NT/RL5 and potential future phased development in the smaller Caldita field to the south in retention lease NT/RL6. 

The Barossa OPP and all supporting appendices will be available for public comment for an eight-week period from July 13 to September 6, 2017.

Shardul Sharma