Woodside moves ahead with plans for drilling and subsea installation off Australia

Australian energy giant Woodside has filed its environment plans for the Greater Western Flank 3 and Lambert Deep development drilling and subsea installation activities to the Australian offshore regulator.

After the filing on 16 June, Woodside’s plan is now under assessment by NOPSEMA.

The energy giant proposes to undertake the Greater Western Flank-3 (GWF-3) development and the Lambert Deep (LD) development, subsea tie-backs to the GWA and Angel facilities, respectively.

The developments will provide additional gas to the Woodside-operated North West Shelf (NWS) Project.

The activities proposed under the plan include drilling and development of three GWF-3 production wells, drilling and development of one LD production well, and installation and pre-commissioning of flowlines, production manifold (LD only), umbilicals complete with umbilical termination assemblies, hydraulic flying leads and electrical flying leads.

Furthermore, the activities include tie-in to existing subsea infrastructure, pull-in of the LD flowline and LD umbilical to the Angel Platform via existing, unused J-tubes, and pre-commissioning of the new subsea infrastructure.

The program will be carried out using a moored semi-submersible MODU, pipelay vessel, installation vessels and a variety of support vessels.

It is anticipated to start in 2Q 2021 and be completed in 2023.

The petroleum activities program is located in Production Licences WA-5-L (GWF-3), WA-16-L and WA-3-L (LD) on the North West Shelf approximately 128 km north-north-west of Dampier.

The closest landfall is the Montebello Islands, which are approximately 74 km south-east of the operational area at their closest point.