Publication Name: Second South-Eastern Australia Oil Exploration Symposium - Technical Papers
Authors: G.H. Roder and M.W. Sloan
Date Published: December 1986
Number of Pages: 24
Reference Type: Book Section
Abstract:
The Barracouta Field represents a bench-mark in Australia's oil and gas industry. The Barracouta 'Top of Latrobe' gas, in Upper Eocene fluvio-deltaic sands, was Australia's first discovered commercial offshore hydrocarbon accumulation. The discovery well, Esso-BHP's Gippsland Shelf-1 (1965), was the country's first offshore well. The history of exploration and development of Barracouta reflects the stepwise evolution of understanding of the petroleum geology of the field, and of the Gippsland Basin.Three years after discovery, the Barraco uta development platform was installed. In the same year, 1968, two development wells made further oil and gas discoveries in separate systems in the Barracouta intra-Latrobe Palaeocene-Eocene fluviatile sands. Based on the growing expectation of the intra-Latrobe performance, two additional delineation/exploration wells were drilled on Barracouta over the next nine years, both without marked success. Further interest in exploring the field was deferred until 1985, when Barracouta-5 tested the oil potential of reservoirs in the intra-Latrobe, with mixed results.
Production from the Barracouta 'Top of Latrobe' gas reservoir commenced in March 1969. The field came fully on line in the mid 1970s, and gas production is forecast to remain high until the late 1990s. Oil production from the intra-Latrobe commenced in October 1968, and the main oil reservoir is today largely depleted, with only two producing completions remaining.
The future of the Barracouta Field lies chiefly in the ongoing development of the known resources. An optimistic view might be expressed that the intraLatrobe may yet contain undiscovered hydrocarbons.