The Coniston development: another offshore challenge in Western Australia
Gianluca Di Martino A , Roumen Sankoff A , Craig Marshall A and Bobby Chopra AApache Energy Ltd.
The APPEA Journal 54(2) 475-475 https://doi.org/10.1071/AJ13048
Published: 2014
Abstract
This extended abstract discusses the key challenges associated with the Coniston development; particular emphasis is on engineering, operations and project management aspects. The Coniston development will produce oil and gas from the Coniston and Novara hydrocarbon accumulations, located in permit WA-35-L, about 100 km north of Exmouth, in water depths of about 400 m. The Coniston development will consist of a sub-sea tieback to the existing Van Gogh sub-sea infrastructure and the Ningaloo Vision FPSO, currently producing from the Van Gogh Field. The project was sanctioned by Apache in 2011 and will be on production in 2Q 2014. To maximise reservoir exposure, multilateral wells will be drilled, and completed, employing inflow control devices of latest generation and monitoring production with the installation of tracers. To take advantage of project synergies, gas lift will be provided by Van Gogh wells through a dedicated gas production manifold. The Coniston development represents a remarkable multidisciplinary effort to develop a relatively small-size oil reservoir offshore WA. Some of the challenges overcome are the high oil viscosity, the complexity of the engineering to install new sub-sea infrastructure while minimising the impact on Van Gogh production and maximising the synergies of the tie back, the constant increase in drilling and facilities costs while maintaining attractive project economics, and the more stringent regulations environmental permits and the ability to optimise drilling and operation to achieve production as quickly as possible.
Gianluca Di Martino is a Sr. Reservoir Engineer with more than 10 years of experience. Gianluca works for Apache Energy Ltd in Perth, where he’s been working since December 2010 on various oil and gas assets located offshore Western Australia. Prior to that, Gianluca used to work for Eni, first at their headquarter office (2003–2006) as reservoir engineer on various oil and gas developments mainly located in the North Caspian area; successively he was seconded to the Eni US subsidiary in Houston (TX), where he worked as reservoir engineer and successively as reservoir team leader on several producing oil and gas assets, mainly in deep water of Gulf of Mexico (2006–2010). Gianluca holds a bachelor degree in Geo-Environmental Engineer c/o “Federico II” University and a master’s degree in Energy Management and Economics c/o Eni Corporate University. |
Roumen Sankoff is a Senior Petroleum Engineer with Apache Energy Ltd in Perth, Australia. Roumen joined Apache in 2008, working on offshore oil projects in the Exmouth and Northern Carnarvon basins. Throughout his carrier he has been involved in all facets of subsurface engineering – from exploration through to development planning, design, execution and operations. Roumen started his petroleum engineering carrier in 2002 when he joined BHP Billiton Petroleum. He worked in reservoir engineering and production technology roles in operations, new developments and infill projects in the Carnarvon basin. After 6 years Roumen moved to ENI Australia, where he worked on gas and oil projects in the Bonaparte Basin and JPDA in the Timor Sea. Roumen holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Electrical Engineering from Technical University of Varna, Bulgaria, and a Master of Petroleum Engineering degree from Curtin University of Technology in Perth, Australia. |
Craig Marshall is the Reservoir Engineering Manager at Apache Energy in Perth, Australia. Craig has some 23 years of extensive Reservoir and Petroleum Engineering experience including field optimization, workovers and recompletions, waterflood practices and technology initiatives to enhance production and safeguard reserves. Prior to his arrival in Perth, Craig worked in Cairo, Egypt, for seven years (2003–2010) at both Apache Egypt and BG Egypt. During his time with Apache Egypt, Craig was responsible for reservoir management issues across twelve producing fields/areas in the Khalda Development Concessions, Western Desert, Egypt. During his time with BG Egypt, Craig was responsible for the development of the WDDM and Rosetta Concessions in the Western Mediterranean, Offshore Egypt. Prior to Egypt, Craig worked for four years in Caracas, Venezuela (1999–2003), as Principal Reservoir Engineer on the development of the LASMO-operated Dacion Field, a stacked sandstone reservoir sequence in the Oficina Formation, Eastern Venezuela. |
Bobby is a Project Manager with Apache Energy in Perth with over 15 years’ process and project engineering experience, of which the last 11 years have been spent working within the oil and gas sector in Western Australia. Bobby is currently working as Project Manager for the Ningaloo Vision Upgrade Project, a brownfields FPSO project and subsea tie-back. Previous Australian project experience includes the Devil Creek Development Project, Varanus Island Repair and Mars Compressor Upgrade projects for Apache Energy and the Montara FPSO development for Coogee Resources. Bobby’s operations’ experience has been gained working as both an office- and field-based facilities engineer within the oil and gas and chemical processing sectors in Australia and the UK. |
