PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Oil and gas major Santos has produced first oil from its Van Gogh infill project, in the Exmouth basin, offshore Western Australia, marking the completion of the two-well programme that is expected to increase production from the field.
The Van Gogh field is one of three subsea field developments that will tie into the floating production, storage and offloading vessel (FPSO), the Ningaloo Vision.
The infill project started in September last year and consisted the drilling and completing of two subsea wells, and connecting these into existing offshore infrastructure.
Santos MD and CEO Kevin Gallagher said that the two dual lateral wells were targeted to access bypassed oil not drained from the original wells, and were technically the most challenging of any wells in the development, drilling horizontal sections in the reservoir as long as 3 500 m only 950 m below the seabed.
Production from Van Gogh began in 2010, with the nearby Coniston and Novara fields toed back to the FPSO in 2015 and 2016 respectively.