The VALARIS 107 will join Esso Australia’s fleet of offshore assets in Q4 2024 as part of the company’s Bass Strait decommissioning strategy.

This decommission comes as part of Esso Australia’s way of managing the decline in Bass Strait oil and gas production as it makes the transition from oil and gas to natural gas.

The VALARIS 107 will complete the plug and abandonment of 26 wells across the Bream B, Perch and Dolphin platforms and five subsea locations.

ExxonMobil Australia Chair Dylan Pugh stated that the VALARIS 107 is critical to Esso Australia’s overall decommissioning strategy in the Bass Strait.

“We’ve now completed almost $1 billion of early decommissioning works across our offshore operations over the last five years, and the VALARIS 107 will play a pivotal role in the safe plug and abandonment of a number of our wells,” said Pugh.

Esso Australia has completed the plug and abandonement of 88 offshore wells, as well as the removal of three subsea facilities — Seahorse, Blackback and Tarwhine.

Bass Strait in the Gippsland Basin was Australia’s first major offshore oil and gas development.

It consisted of an integrated network of offshore platforms and subsea tie-backs connected through extensive pipeline infrastructure to onshore processing facilities at Longford and Long Island Point.

Bass Strait has sold over eight trillion cubic feet of pipeline gas and over four billion barrels of oil since it opened in 1969.

Esso is the operator of the assets in Bass Strait that are part of the Gippsland Basin Joint Venture between Esso and Woodside Energy.