The company has just agreed to pay out nearly $30 billion over the next 18 years in government fines over its role in the Deepwater Horizon disaster, and is still facing decades of lawsuits in the civil sector, so is highly incentivised to ensure that nothing should go wrong in its offshore South Australian drilling.

After all this, BP has told the Australian government the steps it is prepared to take in the event of a catastrophe.

In the 35-day summer scenario, arguably the best case, BP's modelling warns that oil could hit the shore as far away as Albany in Western Australia, and Kangaroo Island or the small coastal town of Beachport near the Victorian border.

BP's modelling of the area that may be affected assumes a sheen of oil five micrometres thick, hydrocarbons of 58 parts per billion, and shorelines with a minimum load ashore of 100 millilitres per square metre in an area.

A spill could land anywhere in the area.

The company has started the formal environmental approvals process as BP and Statoil (30%) prepare for a staged four-well program, kicking off in late 2016 that could make or break the future of the Southern Margin for future oil exploration.

"Plans and regulatory approvals documents are focused on having the right equipment, procedures and skilled personnel to avoid any accidents, but even so, detailed planning is undertaken to respond 'just in case', a BP spokesperson told Energy News

The spokesperson said the recently submitted environment plan contains an oil pollution emergency plan that details how "in the unlikely event of a spill, BP will be able to stop it, recover oil and support rehabilitation".

BP modelling says in the worst case the oil could take several weeks to reach the shore, with the direction in which it could drift varies due to seasonal differences in current and wind direction.

BP has recently commissioned research to conduct a detailed analysis of the entire southern coastline and to establish tactical response plans along it.

Drilling

The JV hopes to drill four wells, although so far it has only settled on the first target, Stomlo-1.

Each well is expected to take between 45 days and 170 days using a new-build semi-submersible drilling rig that has been chartered from Texas-based company Diamond Offshore Drilling.

The $US585,000 a day rig is being built by the world's biggest ship builder, Hyundai Heavy Industries in South Korea.

The new rig will cost $755 million to build and commission - with a delivery target of November.

The drilling area is the previously acquired Ceduna 3D seismic survey area, which covers 12,100sq.km across EPP 37, EPP 38, EPP 39 and EPP 40.

The four exploration permits in the Ceduna Sub-Basin of the Bight cover an area of 24,000sq.km.

The drilling area is some 340km from the coast and sits in 1000-2500m.

Stromlo-1 will be drilled in 2200m of water.

Naturally, BP's massive Gulf of Mexico spill, one of the worst drilling incidents in history, has locals worried, so the company started consultations with stakeholders early, while it finalises its first locations.

A number of wells have been drilled in the Bight since the 1970s without incident, with the last Woodside Petroleum's Gnarlyknots-1, but that was before the two worst oil spills in the last few years found cultures of complacency, cost-cutting and systemic failures at BP and PTTEP.

With swells of up to 16m forcing Woodside to abandon its drilling there is little wonder communities on the southern coast are concerned about the prospect of drilling in an area which the Conservation Council of South Australia describes as having "the greatest diversity of marine life anywhere in the world, with up to 90% … found nowhere else".

In the 2003 Environment Plan for its exploration well, Woodside Petroleum noted the presence in the Bight of some 300 species of fish, of which an estimated 85% are unique to the region.

At least 17 species of whales and dolphins, including the endangered Blue whale, have been recorded there, and the Bight supports important commercial fisheries, especially southern bluefin tuna.

Response

BP admits that since the Montara well blowout in the Timor Sea in August 2009, which covered some 6000sq.km, and the Macondo well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010, the global upstream petroleum industry has been under the microscope, and the industry has moved to develop advanced innovative technologies to respond to a well blowout, especially those in deep water.

It has designed better, more stable rigs capable of working in the extreme conditions of the Bight, which has one of the largest wave energy resources in the world.

BP's containment response equipment and tools will be mobilised from its centralised storage facility in Texas to Australia for the Australian drilling program, while its containment response team will be on standby at Houston for rapid mobilisation in the event of a disaster.

In addition, BP subscribes to Oil Spill Response Ltd's capping and containment equipment, debris removal and dispersant equipment and the Australian Marine Oil Spill Centre's Australian ROV tooling, debris removal and dispersant equipment package.

OSRL is an industry-owned organisation that provides capping and containment equipment, debris removal, and dispersant equipment on 24-hour standby for rapid worldwide deployment.

Subsea Well Intervention Services is OSRL'S dedicated subsea division, providing OSRL members with the opportunity to access a full subsea intervention capability needed in the case of a disaster,

SWIS includes four capping stacks to shut-in an uncontrolled subsea well and two hardware kits to clear debris and apply dispersant at a wellhead, creating safer surface working conditions and enhancing bio-degradation.

The SWIS equipment is suitable for the majority of known subsea wells. It can be deployed in water depths up to 3050m and control flow pressures up to 15,000 psi.

The capping stack systems are strategically located for immediate mobilisation anywhere in the world and for onward transportation by sea or air in the event of an incident.

For a response in Australia, the primary 10,000 psi capping stack system is located at the Singapore facility and primary 15,000 psi capping stack system, located in Norway, would be mobilised.

Manufactured by Trendsetter Engineering, the capping stack should enable the industry to block most subsea oil wells in water depths up to 3000m.

Unlike a standard blow-out preventer, which is designed to prevent an uncontrolled flow of liquids and gases from reaching the surface, the capping stack is placed over the blown-out well to stop or redirect the flow of hydrocarbons and to buy time for engineers to permanently seal the well.

After ROVs have been used to assess the seabed site and move any debris the capping stack is can be placed over the wellhead.

Once fully operational, the capping stack provides a dual barrier for containment—a BOP ram and a containment cap.

The capping stack is similar to the one BP eventually used to stop the flow of oil from its out-of-control well in July 2010 after multiple attempts.

That stack finally closed the Macondo-1 well after 85 days of leaking oil in the relatively benign seas offshore Louisiana.

The BP spill, which caused more than three million barrels of oil to leak out, exposed the oil industry's inability to stop a deep-sea spill quickly.

Refined versions of the capping stack were successfully tested in the Gulf of Mexico in 2012, although to date the capping stack has not been used in a real emergency.

The new capping stack is capable of containing up to 134,000 barrels of oil and 200 million cubic feet of natural gas a day, and has been over-engineered for deeper waters than Macondo at higher pressures.

The industry backed AMOSC has its Subsea First Response Toolkit stored at Fremantle, WA, maintained by Oceaneering.

The SFRT is similar to the equipment and tooling available via OSRL. This equipment and tooling is what is required initially to respond to a subsea blowout to clear debris, survey the site and conduct preparations required in order to run the capping stack.

The SFRT equipment includes a subsea dispersant injection system, ROV tools, 3D sonar, and shear and saws.

SFRT will allow BP to intervene on the existing BOP and control it hydraulically and clear debris in the event of an incident.

Further, under the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association mutual assistance agreement, BP will be able to facilitate the transfer of a semi-submersible rig between operators in the event of a drilling emergency that requires a relief well to be drilled to kill the well using a separate rig.

During the Great Australian Bight campaign it is likely the closest rig would be some 2500km away in the Carnarvon Basin, which would take it more than a week to mobilise to site assuming a top cruising speed of 15kph, good conditions, and a rapid suspension of any ongoing drilling work, offshore WA.

BP's internal standard is that the BP Containment Response Team will mobilise and deploy cap and containment equipment and tools as soon as possible, and within 35 days.

BP is finalising a response plan aimed at capping a well within those 35 days.

For contrast, Montara flowed uncontrolled for 74 days at rates between 400 barrels per day, up to 2000bopd, covering an area of up to 320cu.m per day.

Aerial dispersant from Singapore will also be mobilised.

BP says its logistical studies show the AMOSC-managed SFRT can begin work such as debris removal in anticipation of the arrival of equipment from OSRL and BP in Houston.

It believes it is not critical to have the capping stack in route initially.

BP will also prepare individual relief well options for each exploration well if it becomes necessary to kill a well remotely.

Due to the times and logistics involved, drilling of a relief well would be conducted in parallel to implementation of the well capping and containment activities.

In the worst case scenario it could take 150 days to drill the relief well, BP said.

For the 87 days the Macondo field flowed uncontrolled the US courts found 3.19 million barrels of oil were discharged into the Gulf of Mexico. The full impact on fisheries is still to be understood, although large numbers of fish and dolphins have been found dead, many with poorly developed hearts.

It is believed hydrocarbons or the dispersant are the cause, but a firm link is yet to be proved.

BP says it has learnt the lessons from Macondo, and has enacted 25 of the 26 recommendations from the Bly Report into the disaster.

BP expects the final recommendation to be completed by the end of 2015, as scheduled.