LNG

Australian liquefied natural gas operator Santos has yet to detail any additional progress in its merger talks the Australian peer Woodside Energy for a combination valued at A$88 billion (US$58Bln), though has made advances on the Barossa gas project for Darwin LNG and signed deals with two Japanese companies for the Moomba carbon-capture and storage venture.

Nov 15 (LNGJ) - The Barossa gas project for Darwin LNG feed gas of Australian operator Santos appeared to be partially back on track. Santos reported that the Federal Court of Australia has ruled that pipe-laying activities can commence on an 86-kilometres section of pipeline for the Barossa Gas Export Pipeline (GEP) project.

   The Court has also set the date of December 4 for the commencement of a hearing brought by opponents of the Barossa project seeking to restrain Santos from continuing the pipelay until it revises its environmental plan. “Santos intends to vigorously defend those proceedings,” said the Adelaide-based company. “With the Barossa Project set to supply the Darwin LNG plant for years to come, it is important for local jobs, as well as opportunities for Traditional Owners, exports and relationships with investors and gas customers in Asia, that this project continues,” Santos stated.

Santos has become the latest Australian energy company along with Woodside Energy to have multi-billion dollar offshore natural gas pipeline projects blocked by the Federal Court of Australia for reasons of “underwater cultural heritage” even as in the case of Santos an independent expert anthropologist concluded that no such underwater cultural heritage places existed in the whole area.

The Australian energy industry has been unsettled by environmental activists using an Aboriginal woman and additionally citing concern for whales and managing to persuade a Federal Court to delay Woodside Energy’s US$12 billion Scarborough gas project for LNG expansion, citing seismic testing approval deficiencies.

The Scarborough gas project is one of the few moving forward in Australia and has been specially targeted by environmental activists who have now succeeded in delaying Woodside’s plans as the previously approved seismic testing programme has now been called into question.

The Australian Federal Court by a decision handed down on September 28 has invalidated approvals given to Woodside by the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA).

Perth-based Woodside has yet to issue a formal response to the court decision.

Previous ruling

The Supreme Court of Western Australia had previously, in March 2022, dismissed two proceedings brought against the Pluto LNG and Karratha Gas Plant environmental approvals given in 2019.

In the latest hearing, Justice Craig Coleman found that NOPSEMA, did not have the statutory power to accept Woodside’s environment plan because he wasn’t reasonably satisfied that all relevant stakeholders had been consulted, including some local Aboriginals.

The Pluto LNG onshore processing facility is located on the Burrup Peninsula near Karratha in the northwest of Western Australia and the first cargo from the current single-Train facility was delivered in 2012.

The second Train planned using Scarborough field gas will have 5 million tonnes per annum of output and take total nameplate capacity to around 9.2 MTPA.

The Scarborough field is located about 375 kilometres (233 miles) off the coast of Western Australia and is estimated to contain over 11 trillion cubic feet of dry gas.

Aboriginal voice

In the Court decision to delay, the environmentalists had called on an Aboriginal woman named as Raelene Cooper to seek a court injunction to reverse the seismic testing approval, citing opposition from the “traditional custodians” of the Burrup Peninsula who seemingly had never been properly consulted.

After the ruling a statement was released on behalf of Mrs Cooper in which she said she was “elated” by the decision and described the legal win as more than a personal victory.

“I want my mob back home to be empowered by this day today. This is bigger than me,” she said. “It's about my people and our history. We've been forgotten and treated so badly,” the woman added.

“Woodside just came and told us what was happening,” she said. “They never bothered to sit down and listen to Murujuga traditional custodians about the full impacts of their Burrup hub operations on our culture and our sacred song lines,” she stated.

Shell has again suspended production at the “Prelude” floating LNG facility offshore northwest Australia because of an electric trip, an issue that had previously led to long shutdowns for safety investigations.

Workers at Shell’s “Prelude” floating liquefied natural gas hull moored off the northwest coast Australia have extended industrial action until August 4, disrupting LNG shipment schedules from the facility.

Shell has taken a final investment decision to proceed with the Crux natural gas field joint venture offshore Western Australia to provide more feed gas for the “Prelude” floating LNG export plant.

Shell said LNG cargo exports had resumed from the Prelude floating LNG production facility offshore northwest Australia after safety checks had been passed by the regulator.

The Australian energy safety authorities have ordered the closure of the “Prelude” floating liquefied natural gas production plant offshore northwest Australia after the latest incident in an electrical utility on board and reported on December 2.

The Shell-operated FLNG vessel is moored 400 kilometres north of the town of Broome on Western Australia’s Kimberley coast and has 3.6 million tonnes per annum of capacity.

The Australian National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) issued the order for a deeper safety probe by Shell.

This means Shell will likely be halting the offloading of LNG cargoes from “Prelude” into 2022 while the unreliable power shutdown issues are investigated .

The direction from NOPSEMA means the FLNG hull, the largest in the world, will be off stream until Shell can convince the regulators that the problem has been permanently fixed.

NOPSEMA has directed Shell to review what happened on the Prelude between December 2 and 6 and then develop a detailed plan to implement “all necessary corrective actions.”

Shell must also provide NOPSEMA with monthly reports on its progress from early March 2022.

Onboard inspectors

Shell must additionally convince the safety regulator that it can safely recover essential power and other services after a power outage alarm sounds.

“The failure to restore reliable power was seen to represent an ongoing impact and risk to the health and safety of the personnel on the facility,” said the NOPSEMA statement.

After visiting the 488m-long vessel NOPSEMA inspectors concluded that Shell “did not have a sufficient understanding of the risks of the power system on the facility, including failure mechanisms, inter-dependencies and recovery” mechanisms.

According to Shell, smoke triggered the automatic fire detection and management systems in the early December incident and an evacuation of most of the 200 or so crew on board was started. All workers on the facility were accounted for and no injuries reported.

The Shell facility was previously shut down for 11 months after electrical issues. Operations only resumed in February 2021 following an “electrical trip” in early 2020 and three incidents which NOPSEMA had described at the time as “dangerous occurrences”.

For the Shell project, the Concerto gas field and the nearby Prelude field, with combined resources of around 3 trillion cubic feet, are providing the feed gas to produce the LNG.

The Prelude joint venture is owned 67.5 percent by Shell and 17.5 percent by Inpex Corp. of Japan, operator of the Australian Ichthys project.

A further 10 percent of Prelude is held by LNG buyer Korea Gas Corp. and 5 percent by CPC Corp. of Taiwan.

Australian energy safety authorities will launch an investigation into the cause of a fire that has shut down Shell’s floating liquefied natural gas production vessel, “Prelude”, deployed offshore northwest Australia after an incident in which no one was reported hurt.