Activity Summary
Santos intends to submit an Environment Plan to cover activities in Commonwealth Waters associated with the commissioning and operation of the subsea infrastructure, FPSO operations, gas export pipeline operations, support vessel activities, and subsea and seabed inspection, maintenance, monitoring and repair as required to maintain operations.
The development involves producing natural gas and condensate from the Barossa Field through subsea wells and a network of subsea flowlines and marine risers to a Floating, Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel. Processing will occur on the FPSO to separate the natural gas and condensate. The condensate will be transferred from the FPSO to specialised offtake tankers for export. Gas will be transported from the FPSO to DLNG via the Barossa Gas Export Pipeline (Barossa GEP).
The key facilities during production operations are:
- Floating Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) facility
- Gas Export Pipeline
- Subsea production system tied back to FPSO (inacluding moorings)
Operations are expected to continue for 25 years. Inspection, maintenance and repair activities may occur at any time during commissioning, start‐up and operation.
Figure 1: Graphical design of FPSO
Approvals process
The Commonwealth Government’s independent expert regulator for offshore oil and gas development, National Offshore Petroleum Safety Management Authority (NOPSEMA), accepted the Barossa Offshore Project Proposal (OPP) in March 2018. The OPP is the government’s project-level environmental approval for offshore projects, with construction and operations subject to acceptance of activity-level environment plans (EPs). An EP:
- must provide a detailed environmental impact and risk assessment of the proposed offshore activity and demonstrate how those impacts and risks will be reduced to a level that is as low as reasonably practicable and acceptable for the life of the activity; and
- must describe how Santos has identified and consulted with relevant persons whose interests, functions and activities may be affected by the activities to be carried out under the EP.
Santos will be consulting in accordance with regulation 11A of the Commonwealth Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage (Environment) Regulation 2009 as the Production Operations Environment Plan is developed. Specifically, to ensure each ‘relevant person’ has sufficient information to make an informed assessment of the possible consequences of the proposed installation of subsea infrastructure on their functions, interests or activities.
Your feedback and what's next
In preparing an environment plan for submission to NOPSEMA, a titleholder must identify and consult with ‘relevant persons,’ and then consider their input in the development of the plan. A relevant person is someone (or an organisation) who considers their functions, activities or interests may be affected by the planned activity.
Santos is committed to undertaking genuine and meaningful consultation. Santos is committed to engaging with Traditional Owners, commercial and recreational fishers and other relevant individuals and organisations who may be affected by the planned activity.
Your feedback and input is important to Santos achieving this. Santos wants to understand the appropriate consultation processes for different relevant persons and to ensure we are providing the right information for people to provide informed feedback. This information will be incorporated into the environment plan.
If you think you may be a relevant person for the purposes of this activity please contact 1800 267 600 or email offshore.consultation@santos.com to be included in consultations and to provide feedback on how you would like to be consulted throughout this process.
Visit santos.com/barossa for more information on the Barossa Development.