Chevron Australia and the Gorgon joint venture participants have commenced the Gorgon Stage Two drilling campaign off the northwest coast of Western Australia.

Gorgon Stage Two is an expansion of the existing subsea gas gathering network on the Chevron-led Gorgon facility and is part of the project’s original development plan.

Chevron Australia Managing Director Al Williams said the campaign will drill 11 additional wells in the Gorgon and Jansz-Io gas fields to maintain long-term natural gas supply to the 15.6 million tonnes per annum LNG and domestic gas plants on Barrow Island.

“This development supports Chevron’s long-term supply of affordable, reliable and ever-cleaner energy to Western Australia and our regional neighbours,” Mr Williams said.

To date, the Gorgon Project has spent more than $40 billion on Australian goods and services and awarded more than 700 contracts to Australian companies.

“This expansion will support local employment and contract opportunities on Gorgon for decades to come, with immediate benefits flowing through the drilling and completion activities, subsea infrastructure installation and local project management,” Mr Williams added.

Chevron is working collaboratively with government, industry and others to build Perth as an energy centre of excellence which will help boost jobs, drive technological innovation and support a local services sector.

Fast facts:

• The development, in water depths of between 220 and 1320 metres, will consist of seven new wells in the Gorgon Field and four new wells in the Jansz-Io Field.
• Wells in the Gorgon Field will be drilled by a mobile offshore drilling unit, DD1. The rig was recently in Dampier preparing for the campaign.
• Drilling in the Jansz-Io Field will commence later in the campaign, using a specialised drill ship, KG-2.
• The campaign will include system upgrades on Barrow Island and the offshore installation of:
  • 11 vertical subsea production trees
  • More than 46KM of production pipelines
  • 28.7KM of control umbilicals
  • 2,840 tonnes of subsea structures
• The Chevron-operated Gorgon Project is a joint venture between the Australian subsidiaries of Chevron (47.3 per cent), ExxonMobil (25 per cent), Shell (25 per cent), Osaka Gas (1.25 per cent), Tokyo Gas (1 per cent) and JERA (0.417 per cent).