In the forty years since the first well was drilled in Bass Strait and gas piped to homes and businesses in Melbourne via the processing plant at Longford, almost four billion barrels of crude oil and seven trillion cubic feet of natural gas have been produced from the area.
In 1965 an Esso/BHP Billiton joint-venture drilled Australia's first offshore well and discovered the Barracouta gas field in Bass Strait. Two years later Kingfish was discovered, the first offshore oil field, which to this day remains the largest oil field ever discovered in Australia.
There are now 21 offshore platforms and installations in Bass Strait, which feed a network of 600km of underwater pipelines. That number will increase to 23 by 2011, with the addition of the new Marlin B platform and Kipper sub-sea wells.
According to ExxonMobil, Bass Strait operations have produced almost two-thirds of Australia's cumulative oil production and almost 30 percent of Australia's gas production. While oil production is well down from its peak of 600,000 barrels per day, at just over 200,000 barrels, hopes for gas production are high, and the company expects its Bass Strait reservoirs to continue producing for at least another 30 years.
"The future remains bright for Esso's Bass Strait operations, its dedicated workforce and the Victorian community with the multi-billion dollar Kipper and Turrum projects set to begin in 2011," said Esso Australia Chairman Mark Nolan at Longford on Wednesday, commemorating the 40-year milestone.
"The Kipper Project, near Ninety Mile Beach on the Gippsland coast, holds about 620 billion cubic feet of natural gas and 30 million barrels of condensate/LPG. The Turrum Project plans to develop another trillion cubic feet of gas and 110 million barrels of oil and gas liquids.
"Even after 40 years of production, Bass Strait still has a long life, and we expect to be producing oil and gas for Australians for many more decades."
