Two graticular blocks have been carved from the former WA-36-R to make up WA-59-L for Woodside (60%) and Mitsui (40%), who could be ready to make a final investment decision within weeks.
The licence will last for the life of the field.
Woodside's guidance has been that FID will be decided in the second half of the year, with the aim of bringing the massive Carnarvon Basin oil development online in 2020.
The Greater Enfield development will see the Norton-over-Laverda, Laverda Canyon and Cimatti finds developed via as many as 14 subsea wells, tied back to the Ngujima-Yin floating production, storage, and offloading vessel at nearby Vincent field.
The new fields will eventually ramp to 40,000bopd, pushing the FPSO to its nameplate 120,000bopd.
Brownfield modifications will be required to the Ngujima-Yin FPSO and turret to accommodate the introduction of the Greater Enfield fluids, including the addition of low salinity water treatment plant and injection pumps and turbine drivers, corrosion inhibitor injection facilities, multi-phase pumps variable speed drives and control system as well as the subsea control system for the additional wells.
The FPSO will be linked to the field via a 31km flowline.
The Greater Enfield development seeks to access about 70 million barrels of oil equivalent in Laverda and Cimatti.
Last year Woodside awarded a front-end engineering and design contract to Norway's Aibel to study the tieback option, after it decided that the lower oil price environment, which has driven down contractor costs, has perversely made the development of Laverda more attractive now that several undeveloped oil pools can be aggregated.
Schulmberger has been undertaking FEED on the design of the subsea production system architecture.
Laverda has been under active consideration for development since 2012, when appraisal drilling suggested there could be 100MMbbl in the area, which sits about 50km offshore of Exmouth in about 800m of water.
The Laverda oil field was discovered in year 2000, but was not appraised until 2010 when Woodside drilled appraisal wells at Laverda North-1 and Laverda North-2 to hit oil at the Macedon level.
The first Laverda finds were then confirmed by an additional appraisal well at Laverda East-1.
Woodside has significant experience with FPSOs, having developed the Cossak-Wanaea, Enfield, Laminaria-Coralina and Vincent fields.
Balnaves
At Balnaves, which was terminated earlier this year after a disappointing performance since it was purchased from Apache Energy, Woodside is seeking environmental approval to undertake activities to support the end of operations within WA-49-L, which is about 75km north-west of Varanus Island.
With the company hoping for approvals next month, Woodside says it will then work to disconnect, flush and monitor the subsea infrastructure, including riser turret mooring.
Over the next 6-12 months the flowlines, manifold and moorings will be removed from the sea floor.
Pressure caps will be placed in the wells, and the field will be made ready for final plugging and abandonment.
Woodside bought Apache's 65% interest in Balnaves for an estimated $54 million (net cash) in April 2015, one year into its life, however it quickly found the field's reserves were just 6.7MMbbl and it was no longer economic to continue production.
That lead to $1.1 billion in writedowns, of which some $128 million was recognised in 2015 reflecting the shortfall in value between the value of the Balnaves asset and the lease obligations.
Balnaves consists of four subsea wells: two horizontal production wells, one horizontal water injector, and one gas injector.
The contract with Bumi Armada for the 80,000bpod FPSO Armada Claire was terminated, and remains subject to legal action from the Malaysian firm.
