2014 PESA production and development review
Steve Henzell A and Steve Cooper AWorleyParsons
The APPEA Journal 55(1) 177-188 https://doi.org/10.1071/AJ14013
Published: 2015
Abstract
2014 was the penultimate year for many of the massive multi-year LNG development projects. These projects will lift Australia’s LNG capacity by more than 250% from present levels. The first train of the Queensland Curtis LNG project came on-line in late 2014. Exports are expected to commence from a further three LNG projects (APLNG, Gladstone LNG and Gorgon) in 2015.
The ramp-up in gas demand on the east coast of Australia is spurring secondary development. A pipeline link has been proposed from the NT’s gas transmission system to connect to the east coast gas transmission system to allow gas from the Timor Sea to be fed into the east coast market and to the Queensland LNG projects.
2014 was a quiet year for new oil developments. Offshore, the Balnaves FPSO development was brought on-line. Onshore, the operators of the Cooper western flank continued to discover and develop a series of small fields. These small developments and better performance from some existing fields were able to offset natural reservoir decline elsewhere, leading to an overall increase in crude oil production of approximately 4% from the previous year.
The second half of 2014 was characterised by a decline in crude oil price from more than $100/BBL to under $60/BBL by year-end. For many LNG contracts, LNG price is linked to oil price; existing LNG developments are well progressed and are unlikely to be curtailed by the low commodity price, but future developments are already being slowed or stopped.
Steve Henzell is a chartered chemical engineer with more than 30 years experience in oil and gas design and operation, with experience in aspects of facilities engineering from reservoir and petroleum engineering through to offshore and onshore facilities engineering. He has led projects ranging from screening studies and conceptual designs through to detailed design and commissioning, from wellhead platforms through to major gas processing platforms and gas processing plants. His experience covers Southeast Asia, Asia, Australia, the Middle East, South America and Europe. In his current role as a Principal Consultant with WorleyParsons he specialises in conceptual design development for greenfield and brownfield projects. He also provides global support to the worldwide organisation as an expert providing advice, guidance and experience. |
Steve Cooper is a chartered chemical engineer with more than 19 years of experience in the offshore oil and gas industry and onshore petrochemical industry. His specialist fields of competence include safety engineering, formal safety assessments, risk assessments, and computer consequence modelling of hydrocarbon and toxic chemicals. Steve has invaluable processing plant and operations experience from when he worked as a process engineer involved with numerous plant upgrades and part of start-up and shutdown teams. His involvement in offshore oil and gas activities has seen him complete safety-engineering support as part of design teams and facility upgrades operations, and safety cases for mobile and fixed operations in the UK, Australia and Russia for various major operators. Steve is now the Hydrocarbons Select Manager for WorleyParsons, helping customers realise greenfield and brownfield conceptual plant designs. |
