The first commercial oil project in the offshore Perth Basin has begun production with the official opening of the Arrowsmith Stabilisation Plant near Dongara, part of Roc Oil's $285million Cliff Head crude oil project.
Attending the opening today, Premier Alan Carpenter said the Cliff Head project established the Perth Basin as Australia's fourth offshore oil producing region after Bass Strait, the North West Shelf and the Timor Sea.
The Arrowsmith Stabilisation Plant, located 25kilometres south of Dongara, is the processing point for the Cliff Head oil field, which is approximately 12kilometres offshore, south-west of Dongara.
"The Cliff Head project is the first and only offshore oil development in the Perth Basin," Mr Carpenter said.
"In its first year alone, Cliff Head will contribute about 10 per cent of Western Australia's oil requirements."
Cliff Head will produce approximately 14 million barrels of oil (2,230 million litres) over the life of the project, with the initial production rate estimated to be greater than 10,000 barrels of oil per day.
During the operations phase, 14 permanent staff will be employed in Dongara and five people in the Perth office, while approximately 50 people will be directly supporting the project in WA, including truck drivers, local boat and helicopter support.
The Dongara community will also benefit economically through the project's use of local services such as transport, equipment hire, hotels and accommodation and hardware supplies.
The Premier said the Cliff Head project, in combination with BP's new $6.4million unloading facility at the Kwinana refinery, would help to realise the potential of WA's crude oil resources.
"All production from Cliff Head is being sold to BP," he said.
"Without BP's new unloading facility, the Kwinana refinery would not have been able to cope with the increased oil deliveries.
"The new additional unloading facility will see an extra 15,000 barrels of crude oil handled per day."
Cliff Head was discovered in December 2001 by the Roc Oil Company and is the first commercial oil discovery in the offshore Perth Basin. It is also Roc's first well in Australia.
The Roc Oil Company is the major participant in the Cliff Head Joint Venture and project operator for the Cliff Head project. Other participants are AWE Oil, Wandoo Petroleum, ARC and CIECO Exploration and Production.
