Production and development across Australia 2016

2017 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 363
Author(s):  
Frankie Cullen

In 2016, sustained depressed and volatile oil prices led companies to continue cost reduction strategies. Proposed developments have seen delays and reductions in scope as a result. Australian oil production declined by around 10%. However, new and continued liquefied natural gas (LNG) production bolstered both Australian and global gas supply. Australia was the strongest contributor to global LNG growth in 2016, showing the biggest year-on-year increase. In the first half of 2016, 20% of global LNG came from Australia, second only to Qatar with 29% of the market share. Australia remains on track to become the world’s largest LNG producer in the next 3–5 years. 2016 saw the start-up of Gorgon LNG in March, the first of Chevron’s two North West Shelf LNG projects and the third of several producing, developing and proposed LNG projects within the North Carnarvon Basin – already Australia’s most prolific producing basin. On the east coast, development of the coalbed methane (CBM) to LNG projects continued with an additional train brought onstream at each of the Origin/ConocoPhillips-operated APLNG Project and Santos’ GLNG Project. This further increased production in the Bowen–Surat Basins and drove discussions around the ability of east coast gas to meet both the demands of the LNG projects and ensure continued domestic gas reliability. Additional gas may be required for both, opening opportunities for production from other basins. Gas production continues to drive the Australian industry, with substantial inputs from LNG and unconventional operations. The next phase, in all sectors, will be key to Australia’s future in the global energy market. Will it be able to overcome the expected challenges of global oversupply, continued price volatility and domestic reliability concerns to fulfil its potential?

2021 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 325
Author(s):  
Barry E. Bradshaw ◽  
Meredith L. Orr ◽  
Tom Bernecker

Australia is endowed with abundant, high-quality energy commodity resources, which provide reliable energy for domestic use and underpin our status as a major global energy provider. Australia has the world’s largest economic uranium resources, the third largest coal resources and substantial conventional and unconventional natural gas resources. Since 2015, Australia’s gas production has grown rapidly. This growth has been driven by a series of new liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects on the North West Shelf, together with established coal seam gas projects in Queensland. Results from Geoscience Australia’s 2021 edition of Australia’s energy commodity resources assessment highlight Australia’s endowment with abundant and widely distributed energy commodity resources. Knowledge of Australia’s existing and untapped energy resource potential provides industry and policy makers with a trusted source of data to compare and understand the value of these key energy commodities to domestic and world markets. A key component of Australia’s low emissions future will be the development of a hydrogen industry, with hydrogen being produced either through electrolysis of water using renewable energy resources (‘green’ hydrogen), or manufactured from natural gas or coal gasification, with carbon capture and storage of the co-produced carbon dioxide (‘blue’ hydrogen). Australia’s endowment with abundant natural gas resources will be a key enabler for our transition to a low emissions future through providing economically competitive feedstock for ‘blue’ hydrogen.


2005 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 13
Author(s):  
A.J. McDiarmid ◽  
P.T. Bingaman ◽  
S.T. Bingham ◽  
B. Kirk-Burnnand ◽  
D.P. Gilbert ◽  
...  

The John Brookes gas field was discovered by the drilling of John Brookes–1 in October 1998 and appraisal drilling was completed in 2003. The field is located about 40 km northwest of Barrow Island on the North West Shelf, offshore West Australia. The John Brookes structure is a large (>90 km2) anticline with >100 m closure mapped at the base of the regional seal. Recoverable sales gas in the John Brookes reservoir is about 1 Tcf.Joint venture approval to fast track the development was gained in January 2004 with a target of first gas production in June 2005. The short development time frame required parallel workflows and use of a flexible/low cost development approach proven by Apache in the area.The John Brookes development is sized for off-take rates up to 240 TJ/d of sales gas with the development costing A$229 million. The initial development will consist of three production wells tied into an unmanned, minimal facility wellhead platform. The platform will be connected to the existing East Spar gas processing facilities on Varanus Island by an 18-inch multi-phase trunkline. Increasing the output of the existing East Spar facility and installation of a new gas sweetening facility are required. From Varanus Island, the gas will be exported to the mainland by existing sales gas pipelines. Condensate will be exported from Varanus Island by tanker.


1960 ◽  
Vol 67 (4) ◽  
pp. 351-362 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. D. McIntyre

SynopsisFrom a faunistic survey in Scottish waters, concentrated mainly in the sea lochs of the north-west coast and in the deep water in the North Sea off the east coast, thirty-two species of polychætes are listed which have not previously been recorded from these areas. Seven of the species are new records for British coastal waters or for the North Sea.


1980 ◽  
Vol 100 ◽  
pp. 83-86
Author(s):  
A. B Armour-Brown ◽  
T Tukiainen ◽  
B Wallin

The SYDURAN project completed the airborne gamma-spectrometer and geochemical sampling survey over some 14 000 km2 of south-west Greenland from the fjord Sermiligarssuk in the north-west to Kap Farvel in the south and up the east coast as far as the southern shore of Lindenows Fjord. This covered all the Ketilidian structural zones and a small area of Archaean as classified by Allaart (1976) (fig. 29). Geological field work and prospecting of a more detailed nature was carried out in five areas where previous work indicated possibie uranium mineralisation.


1969 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 15-18
Author(s):  
Finn Jakobsen ◽  
Claus Andersen

The Danish oil and gas production mainly comes from fields with chalk reservoirs of Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) and early Paleocene (Danian) ages located in the southern part of the Danish Central Graben in the North Sea. The area is mature with respect to exploration with most chalk fields located in structural traps known since the 1970s. However, the discovery by Mærsk Oil and Gas A/S of the large nonstructurally and dynamically trapped oil accumulation of the Halfdan Field in 1999 north-west of the Dan Field (e.g. Albrechtsen et al. 2001) triggered renewed exploration interest. This led to acquisition of new high quality 3-D seismic data that considerably enhanced imaging of different depositional features within the Chalk Group. Parallel to the endeavours by the operator to locate additional non-structural traps in porous chalk, the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland took advantage of the new data to unravel basin development by combining 3-D seismic interpretation of a large number of seismic markers, well log correlations and 2-D seismic inversion for prediction of the distribution of porous intervals in the Chalk Group. Part of this study is presented by Abramovitz et al. (in press). In the present paper we focus on aspects of the general structural development during the Late Cretaceous as illustrated by semi-regional time-isochore maps. The Chalk Group has been divided into two seismically mappable units (a Cenomanian–Campanian lower Chalk Unit and a Maastrichtian–Danian upper Chalk Unit) separated by a distinct basin-wide unconformity.


Subject The effects of natural gas pipeline supply constraints in the US North-east. Significance The shale 'revolution' has caused a sharp rise in US natural gas production, but it has been located in areas without gas infrastructure. Production has been concentrated along the Gulf Coast, and the pipeline network is oriented from that region to the North-east and Pacific North-west. Newer areas of energy production, such as Bakken in North Dakota, Eagle Ford in South Texas, and Marcellus in Appalachia, have poor connections to major markets, and constraints have led to pricing spikes in the North-east. Impacts The majority of proposed pipelines for the next several years target areas in the upper Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, and South-east markets. Manufacturers in the North-east will face competitive disadvantage from paying the highest energy costs in North America. Pipeline constraints will not dampen enthusiasm for liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports, especially out of West Coast ports.


Author(s):  
D. J. Crisp

Material collected prior to 1940 indicates that Elminius modestus was not present on British coasts at that time.Elminius increased in abundance in south-east England from 1946 to 1950 and extended its range as far as the Humber, where it halted.Its advance westwards along the south coast was similarly halted at Portland, but by 1948 independent colonies had been established in several of the river systems of Devon and Cornwall, in Milford Haven, and in the Bristol Channel.The first populations in the Irish Sea were in Morecambe Bay. From there Elminius spread rapidly south and west along the north coast of Wales, and more slowly north and west towards Galloway, eventually bridging the sea to the Isle of Man.Detailed observations showed that Elminius advanced along the uniformly favourable north coast of Wales as a definite front moving at a rate of approximately 20–30 km per year. Around Anglesey where tidal currents were stronger it appeared simultaneously in many scattered centres.A distinction is drawn between marginal dispersal taking place under the influence of normal agencies at the boundary of an existing population, and remote dispersal due to an artificial or freak transport over a long distance. In the case of Elminius the maximum distance that is likely to be bridged by marginal dispersal in the absence of strong residual drifts is about 30 miles.Elminius probably first appeared near Southampton, and was introduced into the Thames estuary area probably by remote dispersal. Thence it spread along the east coast and was transported to Holland. Its extension into south Devon, the Bristol Channel, the Irish Sea, and to the French coast must also be attributed to remote dispersal.The main ecological effects of Elminius result from competition for space with Balanus balanoides. Since Elminius breeds in summer, its dominance has a profound effect on the composition of the summer plankton, greatly increasing the number of barnacle nauplii, presumably at the expense of other larvae.


Radiocarbon ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 625-637 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danuta Michalska Nawrocka ◽  
Danuta Joanna Michczyńska ◽  
Anna Pazdur ◽  
Justyna Czernik

Carbonate binders from mortars and plasters as well as charcoal fragments sampled at the ancient settlement of Hippos (Sussita) have been subjected to radiocarbon dating by gas proportional counting (GPC) and accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS). Hippos is situated on the east coast of the Sea of Galilee (32°46′N, 35°39′E) at the top of a hill in the Golan Heights area, Israel. According to historical-archaeological data, the town had functioned since the 3rd century BC until AD 749, when it eventually crumbled into ruins after an earthquake. The appropriate sample selection and preparation based on the results of petrographic observations permitted us to distinguish different phases involved in the expansion of the settlement. More than 200 samples were taken from the settlement and subjected to petrographic and chemical analyses. Of the 200 total samples, about 20 were selected for dating. Here, we present the first 10 results of 14C dating carried out for Hippos. The oldest sample dated thus far gave an age corresponding with the 2nd century BC to 1st century AD—probably indicating an old Roman temple, on the base of which the North-West church (NWC) was later erected. The next dates extend up to the 8th century AD, the age related to the last phase of settlement inhabitation. Research is continuing as new excavations take place.


2001 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 777
Author(s):  
B.F Ronalds

Oil and gas production is characterised by a truly international industry, and yet a unique local environment. Solutions developed elsewhere cannot always be imported directly for Australian use. For this reason alone, a strong local technology base is of value to the Australian oil and gas industry. Other benefits include the ability to provide high quality education and training for people entering, and already in, the industry.A case study is described where the Western Australian technology base is facilitating solutions to a specific challenge faced on the North West Shelf (NWS); namely, that the criteria for reliable development and operation of its offshore infrastructure for oil and gas production are more severe than other petroleum provinces, requiring new analytical tools to be developed.


2010 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 121
Author(s):  
Geoff Humphreys

Australian hydrocarbon production reached record levels in 2009 due to strong growth in production of LNG from the North West Shelf Venture. Domestic gas production also reached record levels. Coal seam gas production continued to grow, with the continuing development of existing fields and the development of the Kenya and Talinga projects in Queensland. Two new conventional gas projects also came into production: Blacktip in the Timor Sea and Longtom in the Gippsland Basin. However oil production was below that in the previous year, reflecting natural field decline and the absence of large scale projects reaching production. The project sanction highlight of the year was the final investment decision on the $43 billion Gorgon LNG project. This project will comprise three LNG trains with total capacity of 15 million tonnes per annum plus a domestic gas plant. The first gas from this project is planned for 2014. Eight other potential LNG projects are in various stages of front end engineering and design, most targeting final investment decisions in 2010 or 2011. The pipeline of committed and potential LNG projects has a combined value estimated to be well over $100 billion. These projects have the potential to significantly increase Australian LNG production over the next five to ten years. In the near term the start-up of the Van Gogh, Pyrenees and Turrum oil projects are expected to provide some respite from the decline in Australian oil production. Cost estimates for new projects are again escalating and skills shortages in all parts of the project delivery chain threaten the ability to deliver all of the projects under consideration.


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