Armour Energy brings Kincora gas project Phase 1 on stream

Sept. 20, 2017
The Kincora restart program will now move on to the next stages, which involves recommissioning of the Kincora to Wallumbilla pipeline and commissioning of the end-of-the-line processing facility at Wallumbilla.

Armour Energy Ltd., Brisbane, has started up Phase 1 production from the Kincora project in the Surat-Bowen basins of southeast Queensland via the recommissioned dry gas circuit at the Kincora gas plant.

The Kincora restart program will now move on to the next stages, which involves recommissioning of the Kincora to Wallumbilla pipeline and commissioning of the end-of-the-line processing facility at Wallumbilla.

Armour says that completion of these activities will facilitate the sale of 2.5 petajoules of gas stored in the Newstead field, which should occur on schedule by the end of this month. The gas flow is expected to begin at a rate of 5 terajoules/day from the Newstead facility.

Gas to be produced from existing wells in the region will be treated by the Kincora gas plant wet gas circuit. Restart work on this circuit should be completed by December.

Once commissioning is completed, Armour intends to increase overall gas production to 9 terajoules/day.

Phase 2 of the project will involve the drilling of new wells, plus workovers and stimulations of some existing wells. This will enable production to be ramped up to 20 terajoules/day during the 12-18 months from start of production.

The Kincora gas field was originally discovered in the 1960s, but production from it and surrounding fields on the Roma Shelf like Newstead did not begin until the late 1970s and 80s.

Armour bought all the assets, including 15 production licences along with gas, LPG, and condensate processing, gas compression facilities and the 7.5-petajoule capacity Newstead underground storage reservoir, from Origin Energy Ltd. in September 2016 for $9 million (Aus.).

At that stage production had ceased and the facilities had been kept on a care and maintenance basis by Origin since 2012.