Four months after project sanction, 75% of the A$227 million budget has been committed and about 40% of the engineering procurement, construction and installation part of the project has been completed, the company said.
With steel prices steadily rising, Roc was pleased to announce that there are no outstanding material steel purchases to be made.
“All primary and secondary steel has been delivered to the jacket and deck fabrication site in Malaysia and all line pipe has been bought and coated,” the company said.
At the onshore Arrowsmith Plant, 18km south of Dongara, the two onshore pipelines had been fully welded and trenching and laying was about to begin. Horizontal directional drilling of the beach crossings for the pipelines was in progress.
But Roc chief executive John Doran said it was still early days and all participants would need to stay fully focused in order to meet the schedule and budget.
“Until first oil production is achieved, every offshore field development project is best viewed on a one-day-at-a-time basis and the Cliff Head Development Project is no exception,” Doran said.
“Progress to date has been good, but with less than nine months to go before targeted production start-up we shouldn’t gloss over the significant amount of work that still remains to be done.
“None of the project’s 300 workforce, located in various parts of the world, is under any illusion about the importance of this project to the participants – particularly the three small-to-medium sized Australian companies which collectively own 71% of the project.”
Doran has said that Cliff Head was more important to Roc than the huge and prestigious offshore Mauritanian Chinguetti project.
Roc is a 3.25% partner in Chinguetti, but has a 37.5% stake in Cliff head and is operator of the project. Both projects come onstream in the first half of next year, with Roc expecting to get 4000 bopd in early production from Cliff Head, compared to 2400 bopd from Chinguetti.
"Cliff Head is an important project for the company, particularly because we are the operator," Doran said.
Despite a reserves downgrade at Cliff Head earlier this year, Roc is still positive about the field.
"It's not large, but we hope that there is more oil in the area and it will establish a strong base for offshore infrastructure in the northern Perth Basin," Doran said.
"Once this infrastructure is in place it will be relatively easy to test the upside potential of promising areas close to the platform through directional drilling."
The ENSCO 67 jack-up rig was still scheduled to arrive on site in late October to install the wellhead platform and deck prior before drilling development wells, he said.
The accommodation barge and the pipeline lay barge, both presently in Indonesia, have been engaged and are due on site in September.
The Cliff Head Joint Venture comprises Roc Oil (WA) Pty Ltd (operator) 37.5%, AWE Oil (Western Australia) Pty Ltd 27.5%, Wandoo Petroleum Pty Ltd 24%, Voyager (PB) Limited 6% and CIECO Exploration and Production (Australia) Pty Ltd .5%.
