Cooper Basin (overview)  

Location

Onshore central Australia, straddling the South Australia and Queensland borders.

Participants

Discovered

The first commercial gas discovery was made at the Gidgealpa field in 1963.
The first Permian oil discovery was made at the Tirrawarra field in 1970.
The first Jurassic oil discovery was made at the Strzelecki field in 1978.

First Production

Gas sales to Adelaide commenced in 1969.
Gas sales to Sydney commenced in 1976.
Ethane sales to Sydney commenced in 1996.
Gas sales to Brisbane commenced in 1997.
Gas sales to Mt Isa commenced in 1998.

Cost to Develop

As at June 2010 total gross expenditure by the Cooper Basin Joint Venture is approximately A$11.5 billion, making it one of Australia’s largest ever onshore resources projects.

Facility Details

The Cooper Basin contains approximately 190 gas fields and 115 oil fields currently on production. These fields contain approximately 820 producing gas wells and more than 400 producing oil wells which feed into production facilities at Moomba in South Australia and Ballera in Queensland through approximately 5,600 kilometres of pipelines and flowlines via 15 major satellite facilities incorporating field boost compression (65 satellite compressors, 15 nodal compressors).

The Moomba facility also incorporates substantial underground storage for processed sales gas and ethane, while Ballera has a smaller underground storage system for processed sales gas.

Natural gas liquids are recovered via a refrigeration process in the Moomba plant and sent together with stabilised crude oil and condensate via pipeline to Port Bonython near Whyalla, South Australia.

Ethane is sent to Qenos in Sydney via a dedicated pipeline. Sales gas is sent to Adelaide and Sydney via pipelines from Moomba and sales gas is sent to Mt Isa and to Brisbane via pipeline.