Karoon Gas Australia Ltd., Melbourne, has begun the front-end engineering and design phase for its wholly owned Echidna oil field in the Santos basin offshore Brazil.
The company has received approval from the Brazilian government for a revised development plan that comprises a leased floating production, storage, and offloading vessel initially supplied from two extended horizontal production wells at the field. A third well will be a gas injector.
The infrastructure will handle an expected peak production rate of 28,000 b/d of oil. Echidna is tentatively scheduled to be brought on stream in 2020.
The field, in permit S-M-1102, lies 112 km off Santa Catarina in 400 m of water. It was found in March 2015 and contains an estimated 75 million bbl of 39.5° API gravity oil.
Earlier this year, Karoon let a contract to Wood Group a multiyear contract for engineering services in support of full field development of Echidna.
Development of Karoon’s nearby Kangaroo oil discovery, made in 2013 in permit S-M-1165, is planned as a tie-back to the Echidna facilities at a later date.
