Earlier this year, BP awarded a $138 million contract to international helicopter company, Bristow Group, to set up an air base at Ceduna to support its initial exploration drilling activities in the Great Australian Bight.
The base will include a new helipad, passenger terminal, hangars and supporting office blocks. An alternate landing strip to the west of Ceduna is also under consideration.
South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill said the base would generate construction work for the local area and subsequently benefit regional communities, from jobs creation to building new infrastructure or providing new services.
In addition to supplying aircraft and crews to move people and critical material offshore, Bristow will also manage dedicated search and rescue services.
The fleet will consist of three large helicopters - a Eurocopter EC225, which will ferry workers from shore to BP's drilling rig 300km offshore, and two Sikorsky S92s.
One S92 will be a backup for crew change and search and rescue, and the other will be a dedicated search and rescue helicopter - the first of its kind in Australia.
The base is anticipated to be completed by the end of 2015.
Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis said the construction of the air base will align with BP, and joint venture partner Statoil's, upcoming exploration drilling activity in the Ceduna Sub-basin, scheduled to begin in 2016 and last for two years.
Other wells, to be undertaken by companies such as Chevron Corporation, Murphy Oil, Santos and Bight Petroleum, are also being planned.
"This drilling program is part of $5.8 billion earmarked by the oil and gas sector over the next five years for investment expenditure both on and off-shore," Koutsantonis said.
Outrage has been growing among conservation groups since the Australian and SA governments jointly announced BP secured four permits to explore for oil and gas off the state's coast, with a 3D seismic survey acquired over part of the area between November 2011 and May 2012.
Further, Bight's acreage around King Island has been highly controversial, leading to a protracted seismic permission process that took almost four years to get signed between permit award and June this year.
BP's drilling is expected to start in the summer of 2015-16 in water depths of about 1000-2500m. At its closest point to the mainland, the proposed drilling area is about 400km west of Port Lincoln and 300km southwest of Ceduna.
The wells will be drilled using a $755 million new-build mobile offshore drilling unit which has been specially designed for use in deepwater.
It will be the first drilling in the Bight Basin for more than a decade.
