Stuart Petroleum operates oil production from 11 fields in the Cooper Basin, spread across 5 major sites and has non-operated interests in 3 additional fields. Stuart’s total share of production in Financial Year 2007-08 was 569,600 barrels, a 9% increase over the previous year.
Our principal site is at Worrior, 55 km to the southwest of Moomba. From here, 3 production operators manage the Worrior field, plus the unmanned facilities at Harpoono and Padulla. Various smaller fields feed in to the Worrior and Harpoono sites.
We also have a smaller manned facility at Acrasia, 125 km north east of Moomba, near the Queensland border. Operations at Cleansweep are serviced from this location. Acrasia also acts as a hub for the Santos operated Reg Sprigg and Reg Sprigg West fields.
Most of our oil is trucked from the field facilities to Moomba for export via pipeline to Port Bonython from where it is shipped to either Australian or overseas destinations. Approximately 15% is trucked direct from our fields to Shell’s refinery at Corio near Geelong.
Six Years of Production Operations
Acrasia was Stuart’s first exploration well and spudded on the 29th March 2002. The well was an oil discovery and was brought online in July of the same year. The Acrasia field now has four production wells from which a total of over 600,000 barrels has been recovered.
The initial Worrior discovery well was drilled in late 2003 and the field now has 6 production wells, with 3 main reservoirs at depths between 1400m and 1800m. Worrior has become the centrepiece of our field operation, with 3 operators based on site. Advanced remote monitoring and communications systems are used to manage the operation, together with 1,300 kW of installed pumping capacity to bring oil to the surface. The produced oil from the field is of an extremely high quality and all major pumping systems on site run directly on crude rather than diesel, delivering in excess of a 50% saving in fuel costs. As of June 2008, 2.8 million barrels had been extracted from the field. Crude produced from the nearby Arwon field is shipped via Worrior.
Harpoono was discovered in 2004. The field and its satellites (Rimfire, Revenue, Comic, Dunoon and Might & Power) have since produced a total of nearly 200,000 barrels.
Padulla 2 was drilled in 2005, twinning the original Padulla 1 well drilled by another operator in 1986 which was plugged and abandoned, having only encountered minor oil shows which were judged to be sub-economic. Padulla 2 was an oil discovery, however initial flow rate expectations from the Murta formation at a depth of 1200m were modest, of the order of 60 barrels per day. However an extremely successful hydraulic fracturing campaign carried out in early 2006 forced a rethink when production rates were briefly boosted above 1,000 barrels per day. The modular surface facilities were quickly reconfigured to include extra storage and pumping capacity. Like Worrior, the crude is of a high quality and is used to fuel the on site pumping systems directly. The field has produced a total of over 180,000 barrels.
Cleansweep was drilled at the end of 2007 and encountered oil in the Birkhead formation. A small modular production facility was installed and the well was brought online in January 2008.
The Derrilyn and Toparoa fields, in which Stuart has a minority interest are both operated by Santos. Crude from these fields goes directly by pipeline to Santos’ Limestone Creek oil satellite and from there to Moomba.
Running a safe, clean and efficient operation
While there are many aspects to running a safe, clean and efficient operation, a few that are key to us in the remote desert environment of the Cooper Basin are as follows:
Environment and Heritage
Before work commences at any site, a thorough Work Area Clearance is undertaken by the local native title claimant group to ensure that no significant heritage items are disturbed. If any items or sites are found, defined no-go areas are marked and site layouts are modified accordingly. An Environmental Risks and Compliance document is then prepared based on a site specific survey to ensure that we can operate within the parameters of our Statement of Environmental Objectives and Environmental Impact Report. Once these steps are complete, a Design Basis and Construction Strategy and Plan are developed, in accordance with the various applicable Australian and International standards.
Journey Management
Because of the remote area in which we are operating, an effective journey management system is an essential tool in ensuring the safety of our workforce. A part of this system involves realtime GPS tracking of all of our vehicles to allow fast and accurate direction of emergency response resources in the event of an incident.
Modular Facilities
We have developed our oil facilities around a standard “plug and play” design. This standardization allows us to hold a level of inventory to match our exploration drilling programme as a standard facilities kit, often on a consignment basis to avoid tying up capital. This allows us to fast track the entire design, construction and commissioning process. Since we are working in a particularly remote environment, specific design elements are incorporated to minimize the need for scarce and expensive specialized tradesmen or technicians, both reducing costs and speeding time to first oil.
Real Time Web Based Production Reporting
Stuart uses a state of the art web based system to monitor the performance of its major fields. This gives field personnel, engineers and managers the ability to monitor key operational parameters in real time from anywhere in the world, enabling optimization of production performance, minimization of crude inventory levels and proactive troubleshooting of any equipment malfunctions.
Critical Sparing
In order to ensure maximum uptime during ongoing production operations a detailed criticality analysis is undertaken and updated on a regular basis. This identifies and prioritizes key components where failure would have a safety, environmental or operational efficiency impact. A risk based process is then used to determine the best way to manage that impact, using real time condition based monitoring or periodic replacement. Implementation of this proactive maintenance programme is one of the key tasks for our field workforce.