Diamond rig ready for Cooper’s drilling campaign

Diamond Offshore’s Ocean Monarch drilling rig has arrived off Port Campbell to begin a workover of the Casino-5 gas well off Australia for Cooper Energy. 

According to VesselsValue, the rig arrived off Port Campbell, Australia, over the past weekend and is currently anchored.

Anticipating the rig’s arrival, the project operator, Cooper Energy, said last Friday that the Ocean Monarch had started its journey from Fremantle in Western Australia on February 19.

Other partners in the project are Mitsui E&P Australia and AWE Limited which hold a 25 percent interest each.

Pre-lay anchor activities and other preparations have been underway since late February, with eight anchors placed on the seabed in preparation for the arrival of the rig.

Since the rig is some 27 kilometers from shore, the company said that the Ocean Monarch might even be visible from the shore.

Cooper Energy added that it was working with the fishing industry and other community members in the lead up to this work and kept interested parties informed. The workover is expected to take around three weeks to complete.

Work on the Casino Henry gas project is part of a drilling campaign by Cooper Energy to bring more gas to the south-east Australian domestic gas market. The drilling program includes work on the new Sole development project, offshore Gippsland.

Cooper Energy also added that, on completion of the workover, the Ocean Monarch rig will move to the Sole field to drill and complete the Sole-3 and Sole-4 production wells. The Sole-3 and Sole-4 wells are scheduled for April and May, respectively.

Cooper Energy has a 100% interest in the Sole gas field which is being developed to provide a new source of gas supply to south-east Australia in 2019.