PERTH (miningweekly.com) – The A$750-million Roma East natural gas project has been declared fully operational, and has been handed over to the Gladstone liquefied natural gas (GLNG) project operators.
First gas from the Roma East field flowed in February this year.
ASX-listed major Santos on Thursday said that the Roma East project involved bringing 480 wells on line, including drilling about 430 new wells, connecting existing appraisal wells, and drilling pre-development wells in the surrounding areas.
The project also includes about 420 km of water, gas gathering and other pipelines, 120 TJ/d of additional compression, 670 km of power lines, 25 km of fibre-optic cables and a new water-handling facility for irrigation.
Santos VP for coal seam gas developments Rob Simpson said that the compression facility was now taking gas from the 200 new wells which have been brought on line since the start of construction.
“Production from Roma has been building nicely and is now about 118 TJ. I am particularly pleased that we were able to bring forward the expansion of 3G and 4G telecommunication services at Summer Hills. This has fixed significant black spots in the country north of Wallumbilla and along the Warrego Highway, benefiting local residents.”
Construction on the Roma East project will continue until mid-2020 as the remaining wells are drilled and connected. When completed, the project will deliver around 50 PJ of additional gas production each year.