Inpex kicks off Ichthys LNG development drilling campaign

TOKYO, Japan – Inpex Corp. announced Wednesday that the Inpex-operated Ichthys LNG Project had started drilling at the Ichthys gas-condensate field, about 200 km off the Western Australian coast.

The first development well was spudded Tuesday by the project’s development drilling rig, Ensco-5006, which recently arrived at the field after undergoing major upgrades in Singapore.

Ensco-5006 will soon be joined by an additional rig, which will also take part in the drilling campaign.

Louis Bon, managing director of the Ichthys LNG Project, said the safe start to the drilling campaign was another major milestone for the project.

“Today we officially mark the beginning of our development drilling program after years of intensive optimization studies and detailed planning,” Bon said.

“This campaign will target the Brewster reservoir with 20 production wells. The wells will be drilled into reservoirs about 4,000 to 4,500 m beneath the seabed,” he added.

Natural gas and other produce lifted from the development wells will be transported, via subsea production facilities, to the offshore central processing facility, where gas and condensate will be separated and processed.

The gas will then be exported to the onshore LNG plant via a pipeline for production of LNG, LPG, etc., while the condensate will be stored on the FPSO facility and loaded onto tankers for export.