The Pyrenees development consists of a floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel capable of producing about 96,000 barrels of oil per day that will be tied into 13 subsea wells in the Ravensworth, Crosby and Stickle fields in WA-12-R.
Development drilling of nine subsea production wells, three vertical water disposal wells and one gas disposal well is scheduled to start in late 2008 using a moored semisub rig. This is expected to take about 18 months.
Produced water will be reinjected into the reservoir in each of the three fields while gas will be reinjected into the nearby Macedon field.
"The Pyrenees development presents another solid opportunity for the company to commercialise reserves in the Exmouth Sub-basin, an important oil region in Australian waters," said BHPB group president energy Michael Yeager.
He added that Pyrenees was the company's second FPSO development in the region. The Stybarrow oilfield is expected to start production in the first quarter of 2008.
BHPB has a 71.43% operating interest in WA-12-R while Apache Energy has the remaining 28.57%.
An earlier draft environmental impact study had suggested that other discoveries in the area could be connected to the system in a later development phase.
