Karoon Gas Australia Ltd., Melbourne, has received approval for a variation of its existing work program in the Santos basin offshore Brazil, enabling it to proceed to a declaration of commerciality (DOC) for its wholly owned Echidna and Kangaroo light oil discoveries.
Brazil’s oil and gas regulatory body, Agencia Nacional de Petroleo, Gas Natural, e Biocombustiveis (ANP), has approved Karoon’s application to review the appraisal plan for its exploration Blocks S-M-1037, S-M-1101, S-M-1102, S-M-1165, and S-M-1166 so that Karoon no longer has a commitment to drill two wells and acquire 3D seismic. Instead the company undertakes to progress Echidna and Kangaroo to a future development phase.
Karoon will now present the final appraisal report and submit a DOC application on the areas it intends to retain for the development program.
At the same time, the company has issued tender requests to service providers for the proposed Echidna development and front-end engineering and design is expected to be ongoing for this year’s first half.
Karoon says the removal of the drilling and seismic commitments provides greater certainty of the future development cost requirements and is a positive step for the tender process and its plans for farming out some of the project equity.
The company began its FEED process for Echidna, which lies in S-M-1102 about 112 km off Santa Catarina in 400 m of water, in July 2017.
The development plan includes the use of a leased floating production, storage, and offloading vessel initially supplied from two extended horizontal production wells in 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 was found in March 2015 and contains an estimated 75 million bbl of 39.5° API oil.
Development of nearby Kangaroo field, found in 2013 in permit S-M-1165, is planned as a tie-back to the Echidna facilities at a later date.
