THE KINGFISH FIELD—OFFSHORE GIPPSLAND BASIN

Abstract

The Kingfish field, currently Australia's largest producing oil field, lies 48 miles offshore southeastern Victoria in 250 ft of water. The field occurs within a large, essentially, east-west trending topographic high on the Latrobe unconformity surface sealed by fine grained clastics of the Upper Eocene Gurnard and Oligocene Lakes Entrance Formations. The reservoir itself is formed by Lower Eocene sediments of interdeltaic origin.

The discovery well, Kingfish 1, was spudded on 6 April 1967. This well indicated the severity of a suspected seismic velocity gradient, a function of high velocity channel deposits in Miocene sediments overlying the crest of the Latrobe unconformity surface. Additional seismic coverage and two outpost wells provided sufficient structural and stratigraphic control to define a commercial oil field having a maximum of 270 ft of vertical relief over an area of some 28 sq mi at the oil-water contact of 7,566 ft subsea.

Following completion of the 42 well development drilling program for the A and B platforms the Kingfish oil field was put on stream on 21 April 1971. Proved and probable reserves have been initially estimated at 1,060 MM STB. The field has flowed oil at rates in excess of 180,000 STB/D for a cumulative production to the end of 1972 of 83 MM STB.