BHP to develop Pyrenees fields off Australia

July 3, 2007
BHP Billiton has received formal approvals and will proceed with development of three shallow-water Pyrenees fields on Block WA-12-R in the Exmouth subbasin off Western Australia.

By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, July 3 -- BHP Billiton Ltd. has received formal approvals and will proceed with development of three shallow-water Pyrenees fields on Block WA-12-R in the Exmouth subbasin off Western Australia (OGJ, July 2, 2007, Newsletter). The Pyrenees project includes Crosby, Ravensworth, and Stickle oil fields, which lie in 560-820 ft of water.

First production is expected during first half 2010.

The plan for the $1.7 billion development calls for purchase of a double-hulled floating production, storage, and offloading vessel having processing capacity of 96,000 b/d of oil and storage capacity of 850,000 bbl. It also requires 13 subsea wells to be tied back to the FPSO and for the produced oil to be exported via shuttle tankers.

Oil reserves in the development area are estimated at 80-120 million bbl of oil and the economic life of the development at 25 years.

Development of WA-155-P will follow development of WA-12-R, said project coventurer Apache Corp.

Project operator BHP Billiton holds 71.43% of the Pyrenees development, while Apache holds 28.57%.