Bayu-Undan LNG

Location

Joint Petroleum Development Area, Timor Gap, approximately 500 kilometres north-west of Darwin in 80 metres of water.

Participants

ConocoPhillips (operator) – 57.150852%
ENI – 10.985973%
Santos – 11.390267%
INPEX – 11.274908%
Tokyo Timor Sea Resources Pty – 9.198000%

Discovered

The Bayu field was discovered in 1995 with the Bayu 1 exploration well and the Undan field was discovered later that year with the Undan 1 exploration well.

First Production

Liquids Production commenced in April 2004 and LNG production commenced in February 2006.

Cost to Develop

Phase 1 gas recycling – US$1.8 billion
Phase 2 LNG production – US$1.2 billion

Facility Details

The development of the Bayu-Undan fields has been implemented in two phases. The first phase is a unique world-scale offshore gas recycling project which utilises the world’s first multi-use separate propane, butane and condensate Floating Storage and Offloading vessel. The second phase is northern Australia’s first LNG production project.

Phase 1 involves the production of hydrocarbon liquids rich reservoir gas and the stripping of LPG and condensates. The lean gas is then reinjected into the reservoir. Phase 1 involved the construction of a Wellhead platform, a Drilling, Production and Processing platform and a Compression, Utilities and Quarters platform. The recovered liquids are piped to a Floating Storage and Offloading facility.

Approximately 22 wells are required over the anticipated 25-year life of the project and 12 have been drilled in the first drilling program.

The second phase of the project involves the export of dry gas to northern Australia’s first LNG production project. Production from phase 2 started in early 2006 and involves the transportation of the lean gas via a 26 inch, 500 kilometre subsea pipeline for processing in a new single train LNG plant.

The 3.24 million tonne per annum LNG plant at Wickham point, Darwin, uses ConocoPhillips’ optimised cascade LNG process technology with associated storage and marine load-out facilities.