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Santos announced in a statement that the FPSO arrived at the Barossa gas field approximately 285 km north of Darwin on June 15, marking a “critical milestone” on the path to first gas in the third quarter of 2025.
According to the LNG player, the FPSO has since been successfully hooked up, and final commissioning activities are progressing to plan.
Santos noted that the FPSO is the production centrepiece of the Barossa LNG project.
The company and its joint venture partners, SK E&S and JERA Co., Inc. have invested $3.95 billion (A$6.07 billion at today’s rates) on the Barossa LNG project to date.
Santos said that five wells of the six-well program have now been drilled with the fifth well being prepared for flow testing.
The final well is expected to be completed in the third quarter.
Santos noted that production from three wells can deliver full production rates at the Darwin LNG plant if required.
Also, the 262 km gas export pipeline and the 123 km Darwin pipeline duplication are complete, in addition to subsea infrastructure required for first gas.
LNG sales
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 2023, the last LNG cargo produced from the Bayu-Undan gas field sailed from the Santos-operated 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, 2023.
As previously announced, Santos’ equity share of Barossa LNG is largely contracted as a part of Santos’ portfolio of long-term and mid-term LNG sales agreements.
Santos’ portfolio of customers includes Diamond Gas International, a wholly owned subsidiary of Mitsubishi, Hokkaido Gas, Shizuoka Gas, TotalEnergies Gas & Power Asia, and Glencore Singapore, as well as foundation customers from its GLNG and PNG LNG projects being Petronas, Kogas, Osaka Gas, Jera, Sinopec, and CPC.
It is worth mentioning here that Santos just received a takeover offer valued at $18.7 billion from a consortium led by Adnoc’s investment unit XRG.
Santos announced the non-binding indicative proposal from the XRG consortium, which includes Abu Dhabi Development Holding Company (ADQ) and US-based investment firm Carlyle, in a statement this week.