Legendre oil field to be decommissioned

Oct. 18, 2010
Apache Energy is planning to decommission Legendre oil field in the Carnarvon basin off Western Australia.

Rick Wilkinson
OGJ Correspondent

MELBOURNE, Oct. 18 -- Apache Energy is planning to decommission Legendre oil field in the Carnarvon basin off Western Australia.

The economic life of the field in permit WA-20-L is expected to occur during first-quarter 2011 after 10 years of production. At that point Apache will immediately begin to remove field infrastructure, including the Ocean Legend mobile offshore production unit, the Karratha Spirit floating storage and offloading vessel, and other associated equipment.

Apache is planning on January 2011 as the base case for the start of decommissioning activities, but this could be extended depending on the movement of oil prices or the discovery of new finds in the vicinity. The timing will also depend on the availability of various specialised vessels, equipment and resources, some of which are shared with other Apache activities off Western Australia.

Decommissioning process will take about 3-4 months.

Legendre was found in 1965 by the Woodside-Burmah group and was the first oil discovery made on the North West Shelf. However it was deemed uneconomic for the next 35 years. The field was finally brought on stream in 2001 and had a peak production of 45,000 b/d of oil (See map, OGJ, Feb. 5, 2001, Newsletter).