Australia’s oil and gas major Santos on Monday announced that a floating production vessel had received first gas from the $4.5-billion Barossa project offshore northern Australia, with the floating unit being the production centerpiece of the Barossa LNG project.
The BW Opal FPSO (floating production, storage and offloading vessel) will be permanently located in the Barossa gas field about 285 kilometers (177 miles) offshore from Darwin in the Northern Territory of Australia. The floating vessel will feed the Darwin LNG plant for the next two decades, Santos said on Monday.
This was the first piece of positive news for the company since it announced last week that a consortium led by Abu Dhabi’s state energy major ADNOC had pulled an $18.7-billion bid for the Australian group, due to disagreements over price.
In today’s press statement on the Barossa project, Santos announced that the BW Opal achieved ready for start-up status on September 16, 2025, and gas began to flow from the subsea wells last week.
The Northern Territory Environment Protection Authority has renewed the Environment Protection Licence for Darwin LNG, commencing September 19, 2025. This paves the way for first gas into, and start-up of, the Darwin LNG plant, Santos said.
The Barossa field will feed Darwin LNG, which has been exporting the super-chilled fuel predominantly to Japanese customers.
“RFSU for the BW Opal marked the formal transition from project execution to production operations, following RFSU for the Darwin LNG plant upon completion of the life extension work scope and the commencement of production from the offshore subsea wells,” said Santos managing director and CEO Kevin Gallagher.
Santos bets big on the Barossa LNG project and the Pikka oil project in Alaska for boosting oil and gas output in the coming months. The two projects are set to boost Santos’ oil and gas production by 30% by 2027, and hike cash flows.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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