Santos plans exploration offshore western Australia

Santos WA Northwest Pty Ltd. expects a single-well exploration drilling campaign offshore western Australia targeting a gas reservoir in the Legendre formation to begin in this year’s fourth quarter.

Permit area WA-1-P lies within offshore Commonwealth waters at a depth of 63 m. The exploration permit is valid until end-2022.

Drilling activity will be carried out using a jackup mobile offshore drilling unit (MODU) with support vessels and helicopters. A sidetrack or re-spud is not planned but is included as a contingency.

Drilling is expected to take 30 days with contingency planning of up to 75 days to account for unfavorable weather, additional drilling (e.g. a re-spud), or operational challenges.

The well will use water-based drilling fluids with no plans to test surface (i.e. flowing hydrocarbon to surface and flaring). Downhole formation evaluation will include wireline logging, vertical seismic profiling, and coring. After drilling, the well will be plugged for isolation to mitigate risk of potential release of wellbore fluids to the marine environment.