Yes JX, it must be nice to have rigs at your disposal and I'm sure they would fast track any multi Tcf field they acquire.
On another rig note..Voelte also today offered a rig to the Govt. if they need it to contain the recent spill at the West Atlas drill.
I bet there's brownie points in it in the Govt's eyes.
Bloomberg:
Woodside Offers Help After West Australian Oil Spill By Jason Scott
Aug. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Woodside Petroleum Ltd., Australia’s second-largest oil and gas producer, said it has offered to help the government battle an oil spill off the northwest coast that may threaten marine breeding grounds and migratory routes.
Woodside is able to provide rigs, boats, workers and an “expert team” for the response to the leak from PTT Exploration & Production Pcl’s Montara field in the Timor Sea, Chief Executive Officer Don Voelte said in Perth today. The Thai company today indicated the spill is breaking up.
PTTEP, Thailand’s only publicly traded exploration company, says it may take 50 days to plug the leak from a well about 250 kilometers (155 miles) off Australia’s Kimberley coastline. The incident has caused a 30 kilometer light-oil slick off a region described as “one of the world’s last true wilderness areas,” by Tourism Australia.
The oil spill “does hurt the industry, clearly, and it does hurt Australia at the end of the day,” Voelte said after addressing a business gathering. “We’d like to see it managed and repaired as soon as possible.”
PTTEP Australasia said the West Triton rig, operated by Seadrill Ltd., is due to leave the Indonesian port of Batam later today or tomorrow morning headed for Montara. It is expected to take 17 days to reach the site and start drilling a relief well into which heavy mud will be injected to halt the leak, the company said in an e-mailed statement.
‘Breaking Up’
Oil, gas and condensate started seeping into the Timor Sea Aug. 21 from a leak 3,500 meters (11,500 feet) below the ocean floor during drilling by the West Atlas rig. The oil spill is “breaking up and very patchy,” PTTEP Australasia said today, after the slick was viewed during a helicopter flight.
“It’s likely a sequence of problems,” Woodside’s Voelte said of the Montara leak. “It’s obviously something you have back-up systems for and as I understand it you had kind of one failure, one failure, one failure, almost a domino effect of failures you don’t expect. The frequency of something like this happening is one in thousands and thousands.”
Mike Groves, a spokesman in Australia for the Thai company, declined to comment on Voelte’s remarks.
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority is using an aircraft from the Truscott airfield in the Kimberley to drop dispersant on the slick, it said today. PTTEP Australasia plans to “deluge” the West Atlas rig using equipment onboard a chartered Ilyushin IL-76 aircraft, it said today. This may take one week to arrange.
Accident Investigation Team
Seadrill has sent an accident investigation team to Australia to find out what caused the incident, the Hamilton, Bermuda-based company said in a statement today.
“Seadrill would like to emphasize that the leak did not emanate from the West Atlas,” the company said. “The hydrocarbon discharge originates from a well on the Montara wellhead platform. The cause of the leak is unknown.”
The site of the spill has been dubbed a “marine superhighway,” Australian Greens marine spokeswoman Senator Rachel Siewert said Aug. 23. “There are populations of baby turtles this time of year, and the area also serves as a migratory route for whales and other marine life.”
The incident probably wouldn’t affect Woodside’s proposed Browse liquefied natural gas project, Voelte said. Browse is among untapped deposits off Australia’s undeveloped Kimberley coast where more than a third of the nation’s known offshore gas is located.
Gorgon Project
Browse may be developed between 12 months and 18 months after the Chevron Corp.-led Gorgon project, he said. Australia’s decision this week on whether to approve the A$50 billion ($42 billion) Gorgon venture about 800 kilometers to the south of the Montara field won’t be influenced by the spill, environment minister Peter Garrett said yesterday.
Woodside fell 1.7 percent to A$48.23 in Sydney trading, while the benchmark S&P/ASX200 Index dropped 0.5 percent.
Browse is among more than 12 LNG projects proposed for Australia and Papua New Guinea that are competing for multiyear contracts from Asian buyers. Gas demand is rising as governments seek to reduce their use of coal and oil, fuels blamed for contributing to global warming.
LNG is gas that’s chilled to liquid form for transportation by tanker to destinations not connected by pipeline.
MEO Price at posting:
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