The Apache Energy-Inpex joint venture’s Coniston oil field, which straddles licences WA-35-L and WA-55-L offshore Western Australia, has been brought on stream 2 years later than scheduled.
The project includes development of Coniston field and nearby Novara field via a subsea tieback to systems already in place for Van Gogh field.
The development also makes use of Van Gogh’s Ningaloo Vision floating production, storage, and offloading vessel, which was recently modified for the subsea hook-up in Singapore.
The vessel can process 150,000 b/d of liquids, which includes 63,000 b/d of oil. It has storage capacity for 540,000 bbl of oil.
The new development includes six Coniston production wells and one production well at Novara connected to a new subsea manifold at Coniston and a pipeline end manifold at Novara.
The FPSO supplies dry gas for gas-lift in the new wells via 4-in. and 6-in. gas injection lines.
Dual 12-in. flowlines have been laid from the two fields to Van Gogh. Oil then enters the FPSO through flexible flowlines and riser bases.
Development of the Coniston project began in 2011 with a scheduled completion date in 2013. This was pushed out twice—to 2014 and then 2015.
Apache says Coniston will flow at 18,000 b/d. It was found in 2000 and has estimated reserves of 15.7 million bbl of oil. Novara was discovered in 1989.
Apache has 52.501% and Inpex 47.499%, although Apache’s Australian business unit was sold in April to a consortium of private equity firms led by Macquarie Bank and Brookfield Holdings for $2.1 billion (Aus.).