Chevron extends WA gas field

Chevron Australia has announced an extension at its Iago gas field, located offshore Western Australia, with drilling reaching an untested reservoir compartment.

The Iago-2 well was drilled using Diamond Offshore's semi-submersible drilling rig Ocean Bounty in water depths of approximately 117 metres.

The well discovered 47m of net pay in sands of the Triassic Mungaroo Formation, confirming a southerly extension of the Iago Field into a previously untested reservoir compartment. A subsequent Drill Stem Test over a 32m interval flowed at a rate of 53 million cubic feet per day.

"The recent success with Iago-2, its relatively shallow water location and proximity to the nearby Wheatstone gas resource, will offer some exciting future development options for Iago," managing director of Chevron Australia Roy Krzywosinski said,

"We continue to progress a multi-train Wheatstone LNG and domestic gas development with a view to entering the front-end engineering and design phase next year for a green field mainland gas facility."

The Iago resource spans two retention permits, WA-17-R, which is wholly owned by Chevron Australia, and WA-16-R, in which Shell Development (Australia) Pty Ltd has a one-third share with Chevron holding the remainder. The Iago field was discovered in 2000 with the Iago-1 exploration well.

Chevron operates the planned Gorgon and Wheatstone Projects, the Barrow Island and Thevenard Island oilfields and is a foundation partner in the North West Shelf Venture (natural gas, crude oil and condensate) and in the Browse LNG development.