Cooper Energy, APA putting muscle into shoring up east coast gas supplies

East Coast gas supply security and competition have been areas of concern for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which recently expressed its concerns around the two topics.

There may be a little relief coming though with Cooper Energy (ASX:COE) and APA Group (ASX:APA) executing an agreement to complete commissioning of the Orbost gas processing plant and establish firm supplies of gas from the former’s Sole gas field in the Gippsland Basin offshore Victoria.

While gas from the field started flowing into APA’s Orbost plant earlier this year, foaming in the absorber vessels of the sulphur recovery unit at the plant has impaired its gas processing capacity.

Analysis to identify the cause of the foaming is underway with APA making modifications to its plant to improve performance.

Planning is also underway for phase-two works to increase gas processing capacity.

Orbost is currently capable of maintaining stable supply of between 40 and 45 terajoules of gas per day (TJ/d), short of the 68TJ/d that is required under the development agreement for the Sole gas project.

COE and APA share price charts

Major oil discovery moves closer to production

One of Australia’s largest oil discoveries is closing in on being developed with Carnarvon Petroleum (ASX:CVN) saying that front end engineering and design (FEED) work for the Santos (ASX:STO)-operated Dorado field in the waters off northwestern Australia are expected to begin in the current half of 2020.

It says the development concept is now well defined with the pre-FEED competition for the supply of a floating production, storage and offtake vessel now well advanced.

BW Offshore, Modec and Altera have all submitted technically robust proposals for vessels capable of delivering between 75,000 and 100,000 barrels of oil per day.

Work is also continuing on the tendering for a wellhead platform that is expected to host eight to 10 production wells with the capacity to accommodate production from future tie-backs.

The FEED work will fully define the scope and plan for the project so that a final investment decision can be made by the joint venture in 2021.