In January this year, Woodside formed an alliance with Explore Enterprises of Louisiana to explore, buy and develop wells in the region. Then in September it paid $US282.7 million ($A378.6 million) to acquire Houston-based Gryphon Exploration Company, a private upstream oil and gas company with extensive exploration and production interests in the Gulf.
Following these deals, Woodside now has the foundations of a high-value hub in the Gulf with a strong lease position, high quality seismic, experienced management, a good technical team, access to deal flow and current production, managing director Don Voelte said.
Gryphon has significantly strengthened Woodside’s position on the continental shelf and Woodside was now aiming to leverage the seismic acquired from Gryphon, according to director of exploration Agu Kantsler.
“We want to extract all the value from Gryphon as quickly as we can,” he said.
The company would drill up to 20 wells on the shelf targeting short-term gas production, Kantsler said.
It would also high-grade its existing deepwater portfolio and drill about four wells targeting material volumes, in addition to pursuing high quality farm-in opportunities.
Meanwhile, design, engineering and manufacturing of subsea equipment is continuing continued at the deepwater Neptune Development which is intended to come online in late 2007 and will provide Woodside's first deepwater Gulf of Mexico oil production.
It is estimated that the Neptune field contains from 100 to 150 million barrels of oil equivalent. The development will have a design capacity to produce up to 50,000 barrels of oil and 50 million cubic feet of gas per day.
Contracts have been awarded for the design, procurement and construction management of the production platform and for fabrication of the topsides and the hull. Orders have also been placed for all major equipment and materials.
The Neptune partners are BHP Billiton (operator and 35%), Woodside (20%), Marathon Oil Corp (30%) and Repsol subsidiary, Maxus (US) Exploration (15%).
