Sunrise coming up next on Wood’s agenda thanks to task for Woodside’s gas and condensate fields

April 17, 2024, by Melisa Čavčić

Wood Australia, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the UK’s engineering and consulting company Wood, has been put in charge of a concept study for offshore gas and condensate fields located approximately 450 km northwest of Darwin and 150 km south of Timor-Leste, which are operated by Australia’s energy giant Woodside.

Following a global contract procurement process, Wood was awarded the Greater Sunrise concept study deal by the Sunrise Joint Venture (SJV) participants, including Woodside Energy (operator, 33.44%), Timor Gap (56.56%), and Osaka Gas Australia (10.00%). This award confirms that partners are continuing to make progress on the Sunrise development, covering the Sunrise and Troubadour gas and condensate fields, collectively known as Greater Sunrise.

The study, which Wood will lead with a multi-disciplinary subcontracting team comprising specialist consulting partners, will consider the key issues for developing, processing, and marketing gas with a strong focus on the delivery of gas to Timor-Leste for processing and LNG sales or the alternative of delivery of the gas to Australia.

Furthermore, Woodside highlights that the study will encompass a range of disciplines, such as engineering, financial assessment and financing, local content, strategy and security, health safety and environment, and socioeconomic analysis. The objective of the Sunrise study is to evaluate which option provides the most meaningful benefit for the people of Timor-Leste.

According to the operator, the study, which will be conducted in “an impartial manner” and will not provide any recommendations to the SJV, is targeted to be completed by no later than the fourth quarter of 2024. Negotiations regarding a new Greater Sunrise production sharing contract (PSC) have been underway since a new maritime boundary treaty was established between Australia and Timor-Leste in 2019.

To make this happen, the SJV and the governments have continued to make inroads toward agreeing to a new PSC, petroleum mining code, and fiscal regimes. Upon finalization, Woodside claims that these will help provide fiscal and regulatory certainty. The Greater Sunrise fields contain an estimated contingent resource (2C) of 5.3 Tcf of dry gas and 226 MMbbl of condensate (100%).

Recently, Woodside decided to keep its participating interests in oil and gas assets off the coast of Western Australia. Before this, the Australian heavyweight sold a 10% non-operating interest in the Scarborough Joint Venture, comprising the Scarborough gas field and associated offshore and subsea infrastructure, to LJ Scarborough, a subsidiary of LNG Japan.