Rick Wilkinson
OGJ Correspondent
MELBOURNE, Dec. 14 -- The Santos Ltd.-operated Otway basin joint venture off Victoria has agreed to begin front-end engineering and design work for Henry gas field on Permit Vic/P44.
Henry, found in 2005 about 8.5 km northwest of the group's producing Casino gas field, has reserves of 160 bcf.
Cost of Henry development is expected to be about $140 million (Aus). The FEED study will be completed by September 2007 enabling gas production to begin in early 2009.
The likely scenario is for one or two subsea wells to be tied in to the Casino pipeline to the group's onshore treatment facilities near Port Campbell in western Victoria.
Although the FEED studies will focus primarily on Henry field, there also will be scope to consider the design of a pipeline and umbilical to allow a future tie-in of the smaller, nearby Martha gas discovery, also made in 2005, as well as two other area prospects Netherby and Pecten East.
Santos has booked two drilling slots for Netherby and Pecten East with the Ocean Patriot semisubmersible when it returns to Australia from current work off New Zealand in late 2007.
Santos has 50% interest in Vic/P44, Australian Worldwide Exploration Ltd. holds 25%, and Mitsui subsidiary Mittwell Energy Resources of Japan, 25%.
