Inspenet, July 29, 2023.
Shell Australia, a subsidiary of the major oil company Shell, has submitted to Australia’s offshore regulator an Environmental Plan for the installation of a drilling platform in the Crux natural gas field, located off the coast of Western Australia.
The National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) confirmed that Shell submitted such a plan on July 13, 2023, proposing the placement of the Crux drilling rig on the AC/L10 production license.
the shell project
The drilling rig consists of a precast steel structure with a seabed footprint of approximately 266 m 3 that will be lowered to the seabed by a light construction vessel. The purpose of this platform is to serve as a guide for the future development drilling campaign in the Crux field.
The Environmental Plan covers the installation of the drilling platform from a ship and related activities, including the use of remote-controlled vehicles to assist in the placement and positioning of the platform on the seabed.
The period foreseen to carry out the installation of the drilling rig is from September 1, 2023 to April 1, 2024. It is estimated that the installation campaign will last approximately one month, as long as the weather and seabed conditions are adequate.
Once installation activities begin, full placement of the drill pad is expected to take approximately 24 hours. Since changes in the calendar may arise, the environmental assessment does not specify a specific date for each stage and considers that the activities described in this plan can be carried out at any time during its validity.
The current Environmental Plan for development drilling in the Cru deposit has an expected duration of 5 years and includes drilling rig maintenance and inspection as part of its activities to ensure that the rig structure has a Plan in place beyond the installation campaign.
The Crux development, operated by Shell and licensed in May 2022, is located in Commonwealth waters in the Browse Basin, northern Australia, 190 kilometers off the northwest coast and 620 kilometers northeast of Broome, with a depth of water of approximately 165 meters.
The project is being developed by the Crux joint venture, comprising Shell Australia as operator and SGH Energy as joint venture partner. The first environmental approval for Crux was the Crux Offshore Project Proposal (OPP), which was accepted in August 2020 by NOPSEMA.
According to Shell, the Crux gas field has been identified as a source of fill gas for Prelude’s existing Floating Liquefied Natural Gas (FLNG) facility. As a result, Crux will have the capacity to supply up to 550 million standard cubic feet of gas per day (mmscfd) to the Prelude FLNG facility.
The advancement of this project involves the construction of a remotely operated platform from Prelude, and five wells are planned to be drilled initially. In addition, an export pipeline will be established to connect the platform to Prelude, which is located approximately 160 kilometers southwest of Crux. According to Shell, the first gas is expected to be obtained in 2027.
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