Deepwater Roundup: Australasia

Deepwater projects are a key source for global energy, and part two of Hart Energy E&P’s latest project-by-project summary highlights some of the latest Australasia deepwater developments, based on publicly available information and analysis.

Australia continues its role as a producer and exporter of LNG, and two projects are expected to send production to Woodside Energy’s Pluto LNG plant.

Asia also makes a strong contribution to the oil and gas sector and is home to some of the largest oil producing nations. Malaysia, the world's third-largest LNG exporter, has one sanctioned deepwater project and one indefinitely delayed. Outside of Malaysia, Indonesia and even the small coastal nation of Brunei are making waves in the sector, with onstream dates ranging from 2025 to 2030.

Part three will cover deepwater projects in the Americas.

Abadi

Japan's Inpex Corp. has submitted a revised development plan to Indonesian government authorities for the Abadi LNG project incorporating a carbon capture and storage (CCS) component. This revision raises the cost of the project to more than $20 billion.

Located in the Masela Block offshore Indonesia, the project is in a water depth of 1,902 ft.

Originally proposed to be developed as a floating LNG (FLNG) project, the plan was revised in 2019 to include an onshore LNG plant as well. Apart from the onshore LNG production, the project is expected to produce approximately 9.5 million tons of LNG per year and up to approximately 35,000 barrels per day (bbl/d) of condensate. The project will also supply 150,000 cubic feet per day (cf/d) of natural gas per day via pipeline to address local demand for natural gas. Final investment decision (FID) on the project is expected to come in the latter half of the 2020s, with production beginning as early as 2030.

Fugro was contracted to conduct marine survey work for the Abadi LNG project in March 2020. A consortium of Japan’s Chiyoda Corp. and Indonesia’s Synergy Engineering was awarded a pre-FEED contract for the subsea umbilicals, risers and flowlines (SURF) as well as the gas export pipeline for the Abadi LNG project in 2018. That same year, KBR won the pre-FEED contract for the onshore LNG processing plant, supporting utilities and product storage as well as export facilities for the project.

Inpex is the operator of the project and holds a 65% ownership stake. As of April 2023, Shell is still a partner in the field with a 35% ownership stake, although in 2020 Shell announced its plans to exit the project and sell its interests. Indonesian state energy firm Pertamina is discussing plans to take over Shell’s stake.

Equus

In December 2022, Western Gas announced a partnership with the North West Shelf Joint Venture and Woodside’s Pluto LNG plant to annually process 3 million tonnes of low CO2 gas from the Equus project.

Acquired by Western from Hess Corp. in November 2017, the development-ready project is located 125 miles offshore of Western Australia in water depths of 3,280 ft to 4,000 ft. It comprises 11 gas and condensate fields in the Carnarvon Basin. These fields contain an unrisked best estimate of contingent resources of more than 2 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of gas and 42 MMbbl of condensate.

The first phase of development calls for three production wells linked by subsea infrastructure to an FPSO facility.

In December 2018, Western Gas signed a memorandum of understanding with McDermott International and Baker Hughes for project development services including pre-FEED and FEED, as well as engineering, procurement (EPC), construction, installation and commissioning.

Western Gas, the sole owner and operator of the field, is targeting FID on the project in 2024 and first gas in 2027, subject to successful commercial negotiations, joint venture approvals and regulatory approvals.

Gendalo and Gehem

Eni SpA looks poised to take over Chevron Corp.’s ownership and operatorship stake of the long-delayed Gendalo and Gehem development by mid-2023. This comes after Chevron’s 2020 announcement that the company was scaling down ambitions for natural gas extraction from the project as its second stage was "not able to compete for capital in Chevron's global portfolio," the supermajor said in a press release.

Gendalo and Gehem are part of a larger Chevron project called the Indonesia Deepwater Development (IDD), which includes the Bangka Project in East Kalimantan. The Gendalo and Gehem fields are located in a water depth of 2,500 ft in the Ganal Block and 6,000 ft in the Rapak Block. The fields are near the producing Bangka oil and gas field, which was developed as part of IDD’s first phase.

The project design phase began in 2010 and was completed the following year. In 2011, TechnipFMC was awarded a FEED contract for two floating production units (FPU) located offshore Indonesia in the Gendalo and Gehem fields. In 2014, McDermott was awarded an EPC contract.

The Gendalo Field is estimated to hold potential recoverable natural gas resources of 882 billion cubic feet (Bcf) and the Gehem Field 698 Bcf. Production is expected to begin in 2025.

As of April 2023, Chevron still retained operatorship of the field with a 62% ownership stake, while Eni has an 20% stake and Sinopec has an 18% stake.

Kelidang

Discovered in 2013 in water depths of 8,530 ft, the Kelidang Cluster Gas Project looks to be Brunei’s first deepwater development.

The field is a conventional gas development located in Block CA-2 offshore Brunei. The project consists of the Keratau and Kelidang North-East fields. Kelidang and the cluster of fields around it contain estimated recoverable resources of 250 million barrels of oil equivalent (MMboe) to 300 MMboe.

In early 2023, Fugro was awarded a contract to carry out various site characterization surveys to support the FEED for offshore production facilities and the pipelines to prospective buyers onshore.

The FPSO-based project is currently in the planning stage, with FID expected later this year followed by commercial production starting in 2025.

The field is operated by Petronas, with Murphy Oil, Shell, Brunei National Petroleum Co. and Mitsubishi as partners in the field.

Limbayong

Due to inflation, Petronas’ Limbayong deepwater development project has been postponed indefinitely while the company explores other ways to approach the project.

Limbayong is in the Sabah Basin in blocks G, J and R, 75 miles offshore East Malaysia in water depths of 2,900 ft to 4,000 ft. The field contains estimated proven and probable reserves of 139 MMbbl and 784 Bcf of non-associated gas.

Discovered in 2002, the project has been frustrated repeatedly by commercial, technical and political obstacles.

Rosmari-Marjoram

Shell and Petronas made their FID on the Rosmari-Marjoram project in September 2022.

The Rosmari and Marjoram fields are 137 miles off the coast of Bintulu in the Malaysian state of Sarawak in 2,624 ft water depth.

Gas production on the project is expected to begin in 2026, with the field designed to average production of 800 MMcf/d. The project comprises a remotely operated offshore platform and onshore gas plant. The infrastructure includes one of the longest sour wet gas offshore pipelines in the world, stretching more than 125 miles from the deepwater fields to an unmanned offshore platform in 285 ft water depth.

In October, Malaysia Marine and Heavy Engineering MMHE, a subsidiary of Malaysia Marine and Heavy Engineering Holdings Berhad (MHB), was awarded a contract from Sarawak Shell Berhad SSB for the EPC services of the Rosmari-Marjoram unmanned offshore platform. The platform will comprise of a topside, a four-legged jacket and piles.

Perunding Ranhill Worley, which performed the pre-FEED work for the project in 2020, won the FEED contract for the offshore work scope in late March.

The field is operated by Sarawak Shell Berhad, a Shell subsidiary with an 80% operating stake in the project. Petronas' upstream unit Carigali Sdn Berhad is a partner in the field with a 20% ownership stake.

Scarborough

As of the end of 2022, the Scarborough gas project was 25% complete and on track to deliver first LNG cargo in 2026, according to Woodside. The project is located in the WA-1-R license of the Carnarvon Basin, off the coast of Western Australia in a water depth of 4,600 ft.

The Scarborough gas resource includes the Scarborough, Phoebe and Jupiter gas fields, which possess an estimated 13.1 Tcf of gas reserves in place. Gas will be transported through a 430-km pipeline for processing at the Woodside-operated onshore Pluto LNG facility where Pluto Train 2, a second gas processing train, will be built. It will process up to 8 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) of LNG for international and domestic markets, making this one of Woodside’s largest developments.

McDermott won an engineering, procurement, construction, installation and commissioning contract for the design, fabrication, integration, transportation and installation of the hull and topsides of the FPU. Saipem was awarded a contract to complete the export trunkline coating and installation of the pipeline that will connect the Scarborough gas field with the onshore plant. Fabrication of the FPU topsides started in June 2022 and FPU hull fabrication started in October 2022. All phase one subsea production trees were delivered by Subsea 7 ahead of the planned start of drilling operations in 2023. Europipe started pipeline manufacturing in February 2022 and three shipments of linepipe were delivered to Indonesia for application of insulation coating. Subsea flowline fabrication also began in August 2022. Woodside said it had also inked binding agreements with Maran Gas Maritime for the long-term charter of two newbuild LNG carriers to be delivered to support the delivery of Scarborough LNG cargoes.

Woodside is the sole owner and operator of the field.