Julimar brunello

The development of the Julimar-Brunello natural gas fields, located off the coast of northern Western Australia, in the Carnarvon Basin, are two of Apache Corporation's (a United States based international oil company), largest discoveries. They constitute the key to Apache's expansion success into the fast growing world liquefied natural gas (LNG) market.

Julimar-Brunello Gas Fields Discovered in 2007

The Julimar and Brunello gas fields that were both discovered in 2007 by Apache Corporation and Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company (KUFPEC) are situated around 180 kilometres west-north-west of Dampier in Western Australia.

Julimar-Brunello Gas field to Feed Into the Wheatstone LNG Project

Both KUFPEC and Apache teamed up with Chevron in 2009 to proceed with the development of the giant Wheatstone LNG hub. KUFPEC and Apache having agreed to ensure the gas supply into the Wheatstone project. This agreement saw both Apache and KUFPEC become foundation partners in the Chevron managed Wheatstone LNG project.

Apache Corporation hold a 13 percent equity interest in the first stage of the Wheatstone project and 65 percent interest in the Julimar and Brunello gas fields. Apache is the operator of the Julimar-Brunello project. The first stage of the Wheatstone LNG project involves the construction of an off- shore central processing platform and a 225 kilometre long pipeline to take the gas to the shore and to the onshore gas liquefaction plant that consists of two processing trains. This onshore facility at Ashburton, near Onslow, will have a capacity to produce 8.9 million tonnes of LNG annually. It is the Apache Corporation's responsibility to design and install the under-sea facilities at the Julimar-Brunello gas fields and to have that gas transported to the Wheatstone off'shore central processing platform.

Julimar-Brunello Gas Fields to Contain 20 Undersea Production Wells

The Julimar-Brunello development project will create up to 20 undersea production wells. Each of the wells will be connected to three central undersea production manifolds. The manifolds will be linked together by means of intra-field flowlines. The gas is then taken to the Wheatstone processing platform via twin raw gas production lines.

The Julimar-Brunello natural gas project will release more than 2.1 trillion cubic feet of gas which will equate to 214 million cubic feet of LNG and 5,000 barrels of condensate a day as well as making available a substantial amout of natural gas for the domestic WA market. The whole project will be developed over a number of phases that will take place over a period of 20 years. The first phase is to draw gas from the Brunello reservoir as it is the closest to the Wheatstone processing platform.

Julimar-Brunello Gas fields Contracts Awarded

The contracts concerning the Julimar-Brunello project have been awarded and purchasing of the necessary equipment, such as the manifolds and under-sea pipelines, is well advanced. The drilling of the development wells and installation of the equipment is scheduled to be completed in the first half of 2015 with the first gas production planned for 2016.

Major contracts for the project have been awarded to the following companies:

kilometre long Subsea Electro-Hydraulic Umbilical

Subsea 7 Australia Contracting Pty Ltd †ñ the under-sea equipment†transport and installation contract

Allseas Construction Contractors Australia †ñ the pipelines transport and installation contract