Woodside has achieved an important regulatory milestone for its Scarborough gas development offshore Western Australia. The National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) has advised of its acceptance of the Scarborough Offshore Project Proposal (OPP), following its assessment of the potential environmental impacts over the life of the project.
The OPP is the primary Commonwealth environmental assessment document for the Scarborough project in Commonwealth waters and forms the basis for future activity-specific Environment Plans, which must also be assessed and approved by NOPSEMA.
Future activities include the drilling of the gas wells, installation of the floating production unit and installation of the pipeline. Woodside CEO Peter Coleman said NOPSEMA’s acceptance of the OPP was a significant step forward for the proposed development of the Scarborough gas resource, which is now being progressed on a revised schedule due to the current uncertain global investment environment.
“Although we are now facing challenging market conditions due to the impact of COVID-19 and volatile oil prices, Scarborough is a world-class resource which we plan to develop at a globally competitive cost through our proposed Burrup Hub.
“Woodside is continuing work to ensure we have all the necessary regulatory approvals and commercial agreements in place to ensure a final investment decision can be taken for Scarborough in 2021,” he said.
The Scarborough field contains an estimated contingent resource (2C) dry gas volume of 11.1 Tcf (100%; 8.2 Tcf Woodside share, calculated using deterministic and probabilistic methods). The field is held 73.5% by Woodside and 26.5% by BHP.*