21 July 2014
Rick Wilkinson
Oil & Gas Journal
Central Petroleum Ltd., Brisbane, has begun clearing works for the Dingo gas field development in central Australia’s Amadeus basin 65 km south of Alice Springs.
This week Central Petroleum has received a pipeline licence (PL30) from the Northern Territory government. This follows the granting of a petroleum production licence (PPL 7) earlier this year and the more recent approval from the Territory’s Department of Mines and Energy for the preliminary field development plan and the preliminary reservoir management plan.
The development comprises a field gathering system that will connect two production wells to a central processing plant and a wholly owned 45-km pipeline to the Northern Territory government-owned Owens Spring power station.
Start of gas production is slated for first-quarter 2015.
Central acquired the Dingo field, along with the producing Palm Valley gas field to the west, from Magellan Petroleum Australia in March in a deal worth $35 million (Aus.).
Dingo field was discovered in 1981. In September 2013 Magellan signed a contract with Northern Territory Power & Water Corp. for the long-term sale of as much as 31 petajoules of gas from Dingo on a take-or-pay basis for 20 years.
In the meantime, further north, Central Petroleum has spudded its Whiteley-1 unconventional gas wildcat in Georgina basin permit ATP 912 near Bedourie in western Queensland.
It is the first in a program of unconventional gas wells operated by Central in partnership with French international major Total. It will be followed by Gaudi-1, scheduled to begin during mid-September this year in ATP909 a little to the south.
Each well will be extensively cored and sampled for gas desorption and reservoir properties as well as logged to evaluate hydrocarbon resource potential.
Courtesy of the Oil & Gas Journal