A group led by Santos Ltd. has released a draft environmental impact statement (EIS) for a proposed expansion of a gas field development that would be used to feed the Gladstone LNG project on Curtis Island in Queensland.
The expansion will extend the field development area from 6,887 sq km to 10,676 sq km. It also will develop an additional 6,100 production wells over the next 30 years, up from the currently permitted 2,650 wells making a total of 8,750 wells supplying the Curtis Island plant.
There also will be development of gas compression and treatment facilities, gas and water gathering lines, and management facilities and power generation plants.
Santos says an upgrade of the gas compressions facilities at Scotia field will begin in 2016. This will be followed by the drilling of gas field development wells in Roma, Arcadia, and Fairview fields in mid-2019.
Santos says, however, that it is likely that only some of the potential impacts identified in the EIS are likely to occur. Market conditions, exploration results, and technology advances will mean that the most likely level of development will be about half of the activities proposed in the document over the next 30 years.
Public submissions on the draft EIS close Dec. 22.
