Rick Wilkinson
OGJ Correspondent
MELBOURNE, Sept. 20 -- Woodside Petroleum Ltd. has brought on stream its Thylacine gas development in the Otway basin off western Victoria after the project's scheduled start-up had fallen behind by more than a year (OGJ Online, Oct. 20, 2006).
Production from Thylacine field, which lies in Tasmanian waters, is being piped ashore to a processing plant in Victoria. Geographe field, adjacent to Thylacine in Victorian waters, will be connected to the main offshore pipeline during a later development phase.
Thylacine will supply 980 bcf of gas to Victoria over an estimated 10 years. There also will be 100,000 tonnes of liquid petroleum gas and about 800,000 bbl/year of condensate. These products will be the main revenue earners for the project.
The commissioning phase is complete, and gas production will be increased to scheduled levels over the coming weeks.
Sales gas is transferred to TruEnergy's adjacent Iona gas plant to be piped onward to Melbourne and Adelaide.
Condensate will be trucked to Shell Australia's refinery in Geelong, 50 km west of Melbourne.
Delays were concentrated in the onshore gas plant construction, which also inflated the project's Phase 1 cost by about 20% to almost $1 billion (Aus.).
This puts into question the original total budget for the project if $1.1 billion, as the Phase 2 connection of Geographe has yet to begin.
Thylacine was found in 1999 about 70 km off Victoria. Geographe, 15 km closer to shore, was found in 2001.
The development includes an unmanned platform at Thylacine plus subsea wellheads and flowlines and a main trunkline to shore. Geographe will be a totally subsea development.
Woodside holds 51.55% interest, Origin Energy 30.75%, Benaris International 12.7%, and CalEnergy 5%.