The Barossa gas project, which will supply feed gas to the Santos-operated Darwin LNG plant, is more than 70 percent complete and “on track” for first production in the third quarter of 2025, according to Australia’s Santos.
Santos chair Keith Spence and managing director and CEO Kevin Gallagher revealed this during the company’s annual general meeting held on April 11.
Back in 2021, Santos took a final investment decision for its $3.6 billion Barossa project.
Natural gas will be extracted from the Barossa field, located in Commonwealth waters about 285 kilometers offshore north-north west from Darwin, and transported via a pipeline to the existing Darwin LNG facility.
In November last year, the last LNG cargo produced from the Bayu-Undan gas field has sailed from the Santos-operated Darwin LNG plant in Australia’s Northern Territory.
The final LNG shipment from Bayu-Undan left the 3.7 mtpa Darwin LNG plant at Wickham Point on November 11.
The Darwin LNG plant launched operations in 2006 and the facility is now being readied for the next 20 years, in preparation for the start of Barossa gas production in 2025.
To prepare for Barossa gas, Santos is working on the Darwin LNG life extension project.
The Darwin LNG plant life extension work is now “well underway” ahead of first gas from
Barossa next year, Gallagher said during the annual meeting.
He said the Barossa gas project itself is “more than 70 percent complete and will backfill Darwin LNG for 15 to 20 years.”
Gallagher said in February that the Barossa project was 67.4 percent complete.
Expanding LNG portfolio
Moreover, the first Barossa well “has been completed and pleasingly, initial well flow rates are in line with expectations and carbon dioxide content is at the low end of the expected range,” Gallagher said.
Spence said during the meeting that Santos is currently drilling the second of six wells, while pipelaying is nearing completion.
He said that subsea facilities installation is “well under way”, and that thirteen of the 16 topside modules have now been installed on the floating production storage and offtake vessel.
At full production rates, Barossa is expected to add 1.8 million tonnes per annum to Santos’
expanding LNG portfolio.
Besides Darwin LNG, Santos operates the GLNG terminal on Curtis Island off Gladstone and has a a stake in the PNG LNG project.
“Barossa is a world-class LNG asset designed to utilize existing infrastructure at Darwin LNG to deliver a low-cost, reliable, long-term source of supply to Japan and Korea,” Gallagher said.