Coniston novara

The Coniston-Novara sub-sea oil field development is located in Australian waters off the coast of north Western Australia, about 65 kilometres north of Exmouth. The project involves the development of the two oilfields by means of a tie-back to under-sea infrastructure that is already in place and being used by the adjacent Apache owned and operated Van Gogh oil field development project. The Coniston-Novara oil field development will also use the,'Ningaloo Vision,' an in-place Floating, Production, Storage and Offloading vessel (FPSO) which is also associated with the Van Gogh operation, that is moored only eight kilometres north of†the two oil fields.

Coniston-Novara oil Project Owned by Apache and INPEX

The Coniston-Novara project is a joint venture operation owned by Apache Energy, an American based international oil company, and INPEX Corporation, a Japanese oil company that was established in 1966 as, North Sumatra Offshore Petroleum Exploration Company Limited.

Coniston-Novara oil Wells in sea at Depths up to 400 Metres

The Coniston-Novara under-sea development project will be comprised of six production wells in the Coniston oil field and one in the Novara field. The six Coniston wells will be connected to a new under-sea manifold for the Coniston field and a Pipe Line End Manifold (PLEM) for the Novara field well. The wells are in water at varying depths of between 340 and 400 metres.

Van Gogh Infrastructure to be Shared with the Coniston-Novara Development

Dry gas, which will be required as a gas lift, will come from the FPSO through new four inch and six inch gas injection lines. A new umbilical will connect the PLEM and the new manifold, to the existing Van Gogh infrastructure. This will provide chemical injection as well as control and monitoring capability. Fluids from the Coniston and Novara wells will be tied to the existing Van Gogh infrastructure through two 12 inch production flow lines that pass to the FPSO by way of riser basins and flexible flowlines.

The Coniston-Novara oil field development will require some minor modifications to be made to the FPSO to allow it to accept production from the new fields. It is scheduled to make these modifications when the FPSO is in dry dock for the purposes of maintenance and repair work. While the 'Ningaloo Vision' is in dry dock upgrading work will also be carried out on the existing Van Gogh under-sea equipment. All this work is expected to be completed and production from the Coniston-Novara oil wells brought into production in 2014.

The Coniston oil field is expected to produce 22,000 barrels of oil a day, on average for the first year of production. It has oil reserves of around 15.7 million barrels. The FPSO, 'Ningaloo Vision' has the capacity to process 150,000 barrels of liquids a day, this includes the production of 63,000 barrels a day and storage provision for 540,000 barrels of oil. The vessel can also accommodate up to 60 people.

Apache Corporation in Australia is focused developing its off shore Western Australian oil and gas fields in the Carnarvon, Exmouth and Browse Basins. The company has been operating in the area since it acquired the gas processing facility on Varanus Island in 1993.