Fiona Burns took over the role as PESA President of the WA Branch during December 2024. She is a Sedimentologist/Ichnologist and Borehole Image Specialist, with over 30 years’ experience in the energy sector working on petroleum reservoirs. She works with the team at TaskFronterra in Perth and has been involved in projects throughout Australia and worldwide including Indonesia, West Africa, offshore China, North Sea and NZ. Prior to her time at TaskFronterra she worked through her company Firmground.
General
Geoscience workflows for CO2 storage
A review and summary by Steve Moss
Geoenergy is a new journal co-owned between the Geological Society and the European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers (EAGE) that was established in 2023 (Geoenergy Home). The journal is dedicated to the publication of non-hydrocarbon energy geoscience and engineering research. In a similar fashion to its stable-mate journal, Petroleum Geoscience, Geoenergy focuses on the publication of timely and topical research in subsurface geoscience, critical for this new era of sustainable energy aiming to provide high quality papers of both fundamental research and case studies of subsurface and near surface analysis.
Woodside and Chevron Asset Swap
On 19 December 2024, both Woodside and Chevron announced their agreement to an asset swap in which Woodside will acquire Chevron’s 16.67% interest in the North West Shelf Project and the North West Shelf Oil Project and it’s 20% interest in the Angel Carbon Capture and Storage Project. In turn, Chevron will acquire Woodside’s interest in 13% interest in the Wheatstone project and 65% interest in the Julimar-Brunello project.
Both companies have indicated that the transactions streamline and focus their respective portfolio’s.
Chevron will make a cash payment to Woodside of up to US$200 million paid at key milestones and contingent of the execution and hand over of Julimar Phase 3.
Beehive Getting Closer
The highly anticipated drilling of the “Beehive” prospect took a step closer on 2 January this year with NOPSEMA accepting the environmental plan for the drilling of up to three exploration and / or appraisal wells on the structure.
Beehive is in Bonaparte Basin WA-488-P and is 100% owned by EOR Resources. The wells are to target a large Carbonate Platform and have a planned total depth of up to 6,000m. Approval is for any time up to 31 December 2029. EOG has stated it intends to drill the prospect in 2025/26.
Previous owners, Melbana have indicated the structure could contain up to 1.4 billion barrels of oil.
WA PESA-ASEG Golf day 15th November
The annual ASEG-PESA golf classic event was held on 15th November in glorious weather at Meadow springs where nearly 100 golfers turned out to compete for glory and prizes.
A new game was played with the Charity hole this year. As in previous years each player paid a donation to the charity to be able to compete to get nearer to the pin than the "pro". But as an added twist this year it was possible to pay an additional sum to the charity in order to "compromise" the pro.
Viridian Expands its Industrial Cloud to the US Market
Viridien has announced the US launch of its industrial Viridien Cloud for AI and HPC production at SuperComputing 2024. This move expands on Viridien Cloud’s established success in Europe, by now offering tailored cloud solutions and end-to-end expertise to optimize compute-intensive production workloads for US industries.
Building on decades of established HPC operations in the US that have supported its subsurface imaging business, Viridien is now introducing its innovative cloud solutions to meet the evolving and specific needs of key sectors, including AI, life sciences, engineering, digital media and energy.
COP29: TotalEnergies to deploy continuous, real-time methane emissions detection equipment on all its operated upstream assets
As part of its ambition to aim for near-zero methane emissions by 2030, TotalEnergies has announced it will monitor and reduce methane emissions with the deployment of continuous, real-time detection equipment at all of its operated Upstream sites.
Since 2022, TotalEnergies said it has been pursuing its ambition to aim for near-zero methane operated emissions in 2030: the Company will meet as soon as this year and target to reduce emissions by 50% compared to 2020, a year ahead of plan.
TotalEnergies said it was thus "well on track to achieve the targeted 80% reduction by 2030.
Shell wins appeal against 2021 ruling that ordered the supermajor to reduce carbon footprint by 45%.
Shell has won an appeal against a 2021 ruling that ordered the supermajor to reduce its carbon footprint by 45%.
The appeals court, which was heard in The Hague, Netherlands, found that Shell did have a responsibility to cut emissions, but not by a stipulated amount.
The 2021 ruling had found that Shell should slash emissions by 45% by 2030, compared to 2019 levels.
The court said Shell was already on track to meet its own emission reduction targets and it was uncertain if demands that it further reduce emissions caused by the use of its products would help the battle against climate change.
‘Hands off Gallagher,’ he’s ‘Staying at Santos’
SANTOS has raised eyebrows with a stern rebuttal of reports that it’s CEO Kevin Gallagher was destined to replace Chris Ellison as chief executive of Minres.
This came after Ellison, MinRes’s founder and the company’s biggest shareholder fell foul of ASX reporting on tax related issues and the company announced he would be stepping down as CEO within 12-18 months.
The West Australian had reported that Gallagher,59, Australia;’s longest serving energy CEO, over the past 9-years, could be ticked off as a potential candidate.
Santos responded almost immediately, dismissing any such suggestion as “completely fabricated, without foundation and false”.
The masthead handballed responsibility to MST Marquee energy analyst Saul Kavonic who it said had “speculated” in his daily newsletter that Gallagher could be MinRes bound in the not-too-distant future.
Moomba CCS Start-up
Beach Energy announced on 17 October the successful commissioning and start-up of the Moomba Carbon Capture and Storage project.
All facilities, including five injection wells, CO2 dehydration and CO2 pipelines have been brought to capacity. The project is targeting capture and storage of 1.7 million tonnes of CO2 per annum in depleted Strzelecki and Marabooka field reservoirs.
Final Investment Decision for the project was announced in November 2021 and 60% completion was reached in May 2023 with the arrival of the compressor and turbine.
Moomba CCS is the third CCS project in Australia and follows the Otway International Test Centre and the Gorgon CCS project.