Santos’ new floating offshore vessel set for relocation in June

A date has been set for Santos’ giant floating offshore vessel to hit Australian waters. Read when it is.

Santos’ newly-named FPSO BW Opal

Santos’ floating production, storage and offloading vessel, a final piece in the Barossa gas project, has been officially named and is expected to be on location about 285km off the NT coast by June.

Named the BW Opal, Santos’ chief executive Kevin Gallagher and chairman Keith Spence attended the launch at Seatrium’s fit-out workshop in Singapore, with about 125 guests ahead of its relocation to Australian waters.

According to energy industry journal Offshore Energy, at 358m long and 64m wide, the Norwegian built FPSO will be one of the largest ever in operation.

Built by Norwegian BW Offshore, the hull was built in Norway and sent to Singapore for fit-out in November 2023, during which time about 43,000 tons of topside modules were added to the vessel.

Santos said that once it’s in place at the Barossa field, the vessel will handle up to 850m standard cubic feet a day and produce 11,000 barrels of stabilised condensate.

Santos’ newly-named FPSO BW Opal

Mr Gallagher said the BW Opal would be a cornerstone of the company’s $7bn project.

At the release of its full year results in January, which showed an underlying profit of almost A$2bn for 2023-24.

“The Barossa LNG project is 91 per cent complete and remains on track for first gas in the third quarter this year,” Mr Gallagher said.

“Final welds on the Darwin pipeline duplication are underway today and when complete will connect the Barossa field to the Darwin LNG plant.

“Three wells are drilled and completed. The fourth well is partially drilled and suspended for later completion. Production from these four wells can deliver nameplate capacity, materially derisking the project.

Santos CEO Kevin Gallagher at the Moomba carbon capture and storage plant in South Australia today. Picture – Supplied

“Other work packages are progressing well and remain on track to support the first gas date.”

The launch comes after the company pulled the plug on its planned construction of a floating production, storage and offloading vessel for the Dorado field offshore in Western Australia.

With first gas set for production later this year, Santos has lately added the Territory’s Beetaloo gas precinct to its potential development list.

Barossa’s costs blew-out by in excess of $1bn as a result of legal stays on the project by environmental and cultural activists, which led to several lengthy shutdowns before Federal Court Judge Natalie Charlesworth found in the company’s favour.

Tiwi Islanders and activists based their case on the risk that the pipeline connecting the FPSO to the Darwin LNG plant would disturb and anger two creatures from their Dreaming – Ampiji, the rainbow serpent and caretaker of the sea, and the crocodile man.

Justice Charlesworth delivered a stinging Judgement against activists saying a cultural mapping exercise and other opinions offered were “so lacking in integrity that no weight can be placed on them” and were tainted by “confection” and “construction” of evidence.

Originally published as Santos’ new floating offshore vessel set for relocation in June