ExxonMobil Completes Kipper Field Compression Project

Exxon Mobil Corp. has finished installing compression facilities in Australia’s Kipper field to maintain natural gas production.The offshore field “experiences decreasing reservoir pressure as it depletes”, requiring additional compression on the West Tuna platform to keep gas flowing to the domestic market, ExxonMobil said in a statement.

The United States oil and gas giant operates the Kipper joint venture with a 32.5 percent stake, with Japan’s Mitsui & Co. Ltd. and Australia’s Woodside Energy Group Ltd. as partners with a 35 percent and 32.5 percent stake respectively.

“The successful completion of the Kipper Compression Project enables the Gippsland Basin Joint Venture to maintain production of critical natural gas supplies from the Kipper field, an integral part of our production system”, ExxonMobil Australia Chair Simon Younger said.

Kipper can produce up to 115 terajoules a day of gas. It supplied nearly 60 percent of the southern states’ consumption last year, according to ExxonMobil.

“Accessing new gas supplies or maintaining gas production is not simply a matter of flicking a switch; our project and operations teams put in more than one million hours to ensure its safe completion and on schedule”, Younger said.Younger said gas remains an integral part of the energy grid as a backup to renewables.

“We have invested hundreds of millions of dollars into the Gippsland Basin, including in projects such as the Kipper Compression Project which will help supply as much gas alone as is consumed in all of Victoria in a year”, Younger added.Kipper, in the offshore Gippsland Basin, is part of the Bass Strait Project between ExxonMobil and Woodside.

In March 2022, ExxonMobil and BHP Group Ltd., whose oil and gas assets were later acquired by Woodside, announced a AUD 400 million ($267.2 million) investment to deliver an additional 200 petajoules between 2023 and 2027.With several fields in the Bass Strait already depleted, the partners earlier this year submitted plans to drill more wells in Kipper and the Turrum field.

“Because more than half the production anticipated from the Gippsland Basin in 2027 is not online today, execution of existing projects and investment in new projects are both key elements of the east coast supply outlook”, ExxonMobil Australia Commercial Director David Berman told the Australian Domestic Gas Outlook Conference March 2023.

Bernam said at the time that “well-defined, currently unsanctioned investments” can produce more gas this decade than either the Beetaloo or Narrabri projects.

Source:https://www.rigzone.com