Maximising production from the Gippsland Basin: integrating subsurface datasets across multiple disciplines to increase domestic gas supply
Adam Fynnaart A * , Natalie Debenham A , Arun Kumaravel A , Kieran Trump A and Angus Goody BA Esso Australia Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Vic., Australia.
B Woodside Energy Global Pty Ltd, Perth, WA, Australia.
The APPEA Journal 63 S232-S236 https://doi.org/10.1071/AJ22256
Accepted: 21 February 2023 Published: 11 May 2023
© 2023 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of APPEA.
Abstract
The Turrum Field in the offshore Gippsland Basin has been a significant gas contributor since first development in 2004 and remains a keystone gas resource in the basin. Much work continues to be done to both optimally deplete the current accessible reserves, and to evaluate reserves capture opportunities through additional drilling. A multidisciplinary team of geoscientists and reservoir, production and wells engineers was formed to re-evaluate how to maximise production from the Turrum Field. New seismic data, wireline surveillance, production and surface monitoring parameters were integrated with existing geological models. An enhanced understanding of the Turrum reservoir has emerged with a more informed view of future well work requirements for optimal depletion of the field. The integration of this new information along with enhanced seismic over the greater Turrum area has not only helped to optimise production from the existing wells, it is also supporting efforts to evaluate the potential to fund additional opportunities to optimise production from Turrum, increasing current and future gas supply to the domestic market. The key to success for this work was the integration of many disparate subsurface datasets and the willingness to test biases and challenge previous field development recommendations based on new data and ideas.
Keywords: Australian domestic gas market, data integration, depletion planning, field optimisation, fluvial, Gippsland Basin, Paleocene, sandstone, sequence stratigraphy, Turrum Field.
Adam Fynnaart graduated from the University of South Australia in 2001 and Adelaide University’s NCPGG with a BSc (Hons) in Petroleum Geology in 2002. Adam joined Esso Australia in 2003 and has worked in various exploration and production roles across the Gippsland Basin, Carnarvon Basin, Papua New Guinea and the Sandakan (Sulu Sea) Basin in the Philippines. Adam is currently working as a senior production geoscientist in the Gippsland Basin Production Team and is the lead geoscientist for the Turrum Field. |
Natalie Debenham graduated from the Australian School of Petroleum at the University of Adelaide in 2019 with a PhD in Structural Geology and Petroleum Geoscience. Prior to this, Natalie completed a BSc (Hons) at the University of Adelaide in 2014 and MRes at Macquarie University in 2015. Natalie joined Esso Australia in 2019 and began in the Gippsland Basin Production Team as a geoscientist for the Turrum and Marlin fields, prior to moving into the Global New Opportunity Team in 2022. Natalie’s interests include reservoir characterisation and structural geology. |
Arun Kumaravel graduated with a Chemical and Materials Engineering Degree (Hons) from the University of Auckland in 2012. Arun joined the oil and gas industry in 2013 working under various positions at Greymouth Petroleum in Taranaki, New Zealand. For the majority Arun’s career, he has worked as a petroleum engineer for a variety of late life oil, and both greenfield and brownfield gas-condensate assets. In 2021, Arun graduated with an MSc in Petroleum Engineering (DL) from Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland. Arun joined Esso Australia in June 2022, and is currently working as the production engineer for the Marlin and Turrum fields. |
Kieran Trump graduated from Curtin University Western Australia in 2017 with a BSc in Petroleum Engineering before completing a summer internship with Esso Australia, leading to Kieran joining the Esso team fulltime in 2018. Since joining the Esso team Kieran has worked as a production surveillance engineer and reservoir engineer across multiple offshore Gippsland Basin fields. Kieran is currently the reservoir engineer for the Turrum Field working on the development of a detailed simulation model as well as the Australian Reserves coordinator. |
Angus Goody graduated from the Australian National University in 1991 with a BSc (Hons) in Geology and Geophysics. He joined BHP in 1992 as a geophysicist and worked at BHP for 30 years on a variety of exploration, appraisal and development projects out of BHP’s Melbourne, London, Houston and Perth offices. He returned to Perth from Houston in 2018, working predominantly on the Gippsland Basin. Since the merger of BHP and Woodside in June 2022, he has been in the Australia Exploration team in Woodside. |
References
Debenham N, Fynnaart A, Ryan M, Goody A (2022) Optimising value in the mature Turrum Field: integrating modern seismic, high-resolution sequence stratigraphy and production data in a 3D geological model. The APPEA Journal 62, S416–S420.| Optimising value in the mature Turrum Field: integrating modern seismic, high-resolution sequence stratigraphy and production data in a 3D geological model.Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
