In its environmental submission, Santos said the Fletcher-Finucane subsea development is expected to produce oil at an initial rate of 50,000 barrels of oil per day, far outstripping the current production of about 8000bpd from the Mutineer and Exeter fields.

First oil is expected by the end of 2013 and the development is expected to have a 4-5 year production life.

Santos says it is in the process of tendering for the supply of a semisubmersible drilling rig to drill the Fletcher-5H, Finucane South-2H and Finucane South-3H wells in WA-191-P.

Drilling is currently scheduled to start around April or May 2012 subject to weather and rig availability.

Fletcher-5H will be drilled from one drill centre while both Finucane South wells will share their own drill centre.

Santos said it was assessing two flowline configuration options to connect the wells to the existing Mutineer subsea manifold.

The first option will involve the use of 12 inch rigid flowlines that will stretch out over 22.6 kilometres while the second will use 31km of 10 inch flexible flowlines.

The Modec Venture 11 FPSO is capable of processing up to 140,000bpd of fluids, including a maximum of 100,000bpd of oil, and storing 930,000bpd of oil.

Based on the production figures, Santos appears to be estimating Fletcher -Finucane reserves at 7.3-9.1 million barrels of oil equivalent, well within the 6-10MMbbl range estimated by Intersuisse oil and gas analyst Nicholas Wirubov in May.

Partners in WA-191-P are Santos (33.4%), Kufpec (33.4%), Nippon Oil (25%) and Tap Oil (8.2%).