Oz Senex Awards Surat Basin Drilling Contract

Australia’s Senex Energy has awarded Surat Basin drilling contract to Queensland-based Easternwell, it said April 16.

Easternwell will start Senex’s natural gas drilling programme across Project Atlas and Roma North in May 2019, with completion of this initial drilling program planned for mid-2020. Senex said it can extend the duration of the Easternwell contract to a total period of up to two years from the contract start date.

Over the past 12 months Senex has received all required state and federal regulatory approvals across Project Atlas and Roma North; partnered with infrastructure provider Jemena to build, own and operate the Project Atlas gas processing facility and associated pipeline.

Civil works are underway on this facility, with commissioning and first sales gas due late in 2019, Senex said.

Senex has also progressed construction of the Roma North gas processing facility, with civil works and pipeline construction complete and major equipment items installed. Commissioning of this facility and first sales gas are due in mid-2019.

“This contract puts in place one of the final major elements for the delivery of our Surat Basin natural gas projects,” CEO Ian Davies said.

The primary objective of the Project Atlas natural gas development programme is to reach plateau production of 32 terajoules/d (0.85mn m3/d), with an additional 8 TJ/d (0.21mn m3/d) of installed redundant capacity. Atlas will include around 60 development wells being drilled in its initial campaigns starting late 3Q 2019, according to Senex. The final investment decision regarding Project Atlas was taken last October.