Australian energy giant Woodside Petroleum is planning to begin its Myanmar drilling campaign in 2017 after making promising discoveries in two offshore fields, online publication Asian Oil and Gas said last week.
The plan was unveiled at Woodside’s half-year results teleconference on August 19.
“Our competitive position in Myanmar provides us with substantial resource potential that is located close to existing infrastructure and assets,” Woodside chief executive and managing director Mr Peter Coleman told the teleconference, AOG reported.
Woodside’s 1H results for 2016 show the discoveries made late last year at the Shwee Yee Htun-1 and Thalin-1a fields have so far identified 2.4 trillion cubic feet of gas.
“We are looking at how we can access and pursue options to commercialize these discoveries,” Mr Lawrie Tremaine, Woodside’s executive vice-president and chief financial officer, told the teleconference, AOG said.
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“We’re processing and evaluating currently more than 31,500 square kilometres of newly acquired high-quality seismic data across this [Rakhine] basin and we’re preparing for a drilling campaign in 2017 with our JV partners and the Myanmar government,” Tremaine said.
“We have a significant and well-positioned offshore acreage position in this portfolio and we see this as an exciting and significant emerging basin,” he said.
Shwe Yee Htun-1 and Thalin-1A are in the Rakhine Basin in the Bay of Bengal, where Woodside is one of the largest acreage holders, holding stakes in six blocks, AOG said.
Shwe Yee Htun is in Block A-6, about 54km offshore. The well was drilled by the Deepwater Millenium drillship in water 2000 metres deep seven kilometres from the edge of the continental shelf.
Woodside says it contains about 895 billion cubic feet of what in the industry is known as 2C resources, the best estimate of contingent resources.
The Shwe Yee Htun-1 discovery has both tie-back and standalone development options due to additional exploration potential in areas next to the discovery, AOG reported. As a tie-back, it could tie into the Yadana gas processing facility using existing technology.
Thalin-1A, in Block AD-7, is about 100km offshore and was drilled by the Deepwater Millenium in water 836m deep. Thalin contains 1,510 billion cubic feet of 2C recoverable resources and could be a tie-back to the Shwe central processing platform using existing technology, AOG said.
