Environmental Assessment Begins for Julimar Phase 3 Drilling and Subsea Installation

Australian regulator NOPSEMA has begun assessment of Woodside Energy’s environment plans for Julimar Development Phase 3 Drilling and Subsea Installation.

The Julimar field is located in Western Australian waters about 170km north-west of Dampier.

Woodside’s Phase 3 development will involve drilling up to four wells in the Julimar field and one well in the Penfolds prospect, along with the associated subsea installation. The production system will have a design life of 25 years and will produce hydrocarbons from the Julimar and Penfolds reservoirs via the existing Phase 1 and 2 infrastructure and the third-party operated Wheatstone Platform and onshore LNG plant.

Wells will be drilled by either a moored semi-submersible MODU or a hybrid MODU with both moorings and dynamically positioned systems. Drilling is anticipated to take 60 days per well.

In 2021, as part of the Phase 2 development, Woodside and Subsea 7 delivered what was believed to be the biggest diameter corrosion resistant alloy (CRA) pipeline ever “spooled” around a reel. The project involved laying of 22km of 18-inch CRA-clad gas transmission flowline.

For Phase 3, two wells are proposed to connect to a new two slot production manifold which will tie into the existing in-line tee assembly within the 18-inch flowline via approximately 2.5km of flexible flowline.