The floating storage production and offloading (FPSO) unit for the Santos-led (ASX:STO) Barossa gas and condensate project – that will backfill the Darwin LNG export plant – offshore northern Australia is 40% finished as of July.
Norway’s BW Offshore, which owns the FPSO on lease to the Barossa developers said it is “in line with schedule.” Those developers are a consortium comprising Australia’s Santos (50%), South Korea’s SK E&S (37.5%) and Japan’s Jera (12.5%).
In March 2021, BW Offshore signed a contract with Santos, operator of the project, for the supply of an FPSO for the Barossa gas field, with initial production expected to commence during the first half of 2025.
The Barossa FPSO will be built in South Korea and Singapore before being towed and permanently moored at the field where it will produce and process natural gas for export via pipeline to Darwin LNG. Condensate will be stored on the FPSO for periodic offloading.
The unit for the Barossa gas field will be a large FPSO with processing capacity for up to 800 million standard cubic feet per day (MMSCFD) of gas and design capacity of 11,000 barrels per day of stabilised condensate. The FPSO will be turret moored with a newbuilt hull.
The Barossa gas field is located 300 kilometres offshore Darwin in northern Australia. Barossa will be developed via a FPSO with six subsea production wells, in-field facilities and a gas export pipeline tied into the Bayu-Undan to Darwin pipeline system that supplies gas to Darwin LNG.