Santos Ltd., Adelaide, has announced that oil from its two-well infill project in Van Gogh field in the Exmouth basin offshore Western Australia has been brought on stream.
The infill project began in September 2018 and involved the drilling and completion of two subsea wells and connecting them to the existing field infrastructure.
Van Gogh field is one of three subsea oil field developments in the basin that are tied in to the Ningaloo Vision floating production, storage, and offloading vessel.
The two dual-lateral wells were designed to access bypassed oil not drained by the original field wells. The technically challenging operation involved drilling horizontal sections in the reservoirs up to 3,500 m in length and only 950 m subsea.
The successful project will provide a boost to oil production from the field.
Van Gogh was discovered in 2003 and production began in 2010. Nearby Coniston field, discovered in 2000, and Novara field, found in 1989, were respectively tied back to the FPSO in 2015 and 2016.
Santos has 52.5% interest and operatorship of the Van Gogh-Coniston-Novara development, which it acquired last year when it bought Quadrant Energy Ltd. of Perth. Inpex of Japan has the remaining 47.5%.
