Kato Energy gets green light for NW Shelf oil development
Kato Energy Pty Ltd., Perth, received approval from Australian offshore petroleum regulator NOPSEMA for development of its 100%-owned Amulet and Corowa oil fields on the North West Shelf off Western Australia.
Amulet field is in retention license WA-8-L in water depths of 80 m about 130 km north of Dampier. It lies 3.5 km east and in the same license as Talisman field that was abandoned by Marathon Petroleum in 1992. Because of the proximity, Kato is considering reinstatement of production at Talisman in conjunction with the Amulet project.
Corowa field is in retention license WA-41-R in water depths of 90 m some 60 km from Onslow.
Kato plans to develop both fields using a relocatable system—the honeybee production system—that comprises a self-installing jack up mobile offshore production unit that will separate and process oil, gas, and water.
The jack up also contains a wells workover module with capacity to plug and abandon wells and potentially to drill, although a separate mobile drilling unit may be used.
The system also contains a short flowline and riser from the jack up unit to a catenary anchor leg mooring buoy, floating marine hose, and a floating storage and offloading (FSO) vessel.
For Amulet, Kato is proposing to drill up to two production wells, one dual-purpose production-water injection well and allowance for a sidetrack well.
If Talisman is included, another two production wells will be drilled. The preference will be to drill extended reach deviated wells from the jack up unit while at Amulet. However, there is also a subsea tieback option for Talisman via a 3.5 km production flowline and service umbilical from Amulet.
Corowa development includes the same honeybee system with drilling of up to four wells.
Both developments are expected to have a production life of 2-4.5 years.
The intention is one development at a time with the mobile jack up unit relocated to the next field following a 3-month decommissioning of the first.
The order of development is still undecided, but the first field is scheduled to be brought on stream early 2024.