Chevron starts Gorgon Stage 2 drilling campaign

Chevron Australia and the Gorgon joint venture participants have started the Gorgon Stage 2 drilling campaign off the northwest coast of Western Australia.

Chevron said last week that the Gorgon Stage 2 was an expansion of the existing subsea gas gathering network on the Chevron-led Gorgon facility and was part of the project’s original development plan.

The campaign will drill 11 additional wells in the Gorgon and Jansz-Io gas fields to maintain long-term natural gas supply to the 15.6 million tonnes per annum LNG and domestic gas plants on Barrow Island.

Chevron Australia managing director Al Williams said: “This development supports Chevron’s long-term supply of affordable, reliable and ever-cleaner energy to Western Australia and our regional neighbors.

“This expansion will support local employment and contract opportunities on Gorgon for decades to come, with immediate benefits flowing through the drilling and completion activities, subsea infrastructure installation and local project management.”

As for the development, it will consist of seven new wells in the Gorgon Field and four new wells in the Jansz-Io field. Wells in the Gorgon Field will be drilled by a mobile offshore drilling unit DD1 while the drilling in the Jansz-Io Field will begin later in the campaign using the KG-2 drillship.

The campaign will also include system upgrades on Barrow Island and the offshore installation of 11 vertical subsea production trees, more than 46 kilometers of production pipelines, 28.7 kilometers of control umbilicals, and 2,840 tonnes of subsea structures.

It is worth reminding that offshore installation and construction company Allseas announced last week that it was on the lookout for an anchor handler to support its work on Chevron’s Gorgon Stage 2 project off Australia.

Allseas, which has been awarded an offshore pipeline installation scope, stated it was looking for a vessel and associated services for operations during installation work planned from the second quarter of 2020, with the execution of works expected in Q4 2020/Q1 2021 period.

The Chevron-operated Gorgon Project is a joint venture between the Australian subsidiaries of Chevron (47.3 percent), ExxonMobil (25 percent), Shell (25 percent), Osaka Gas (1.25 percent), Tokyo Gas (1 percent), and JERA (0.417 percent).