Project Profile
Value: US$1,016 million
Location: Production Licence AC/L9 in the Browse Basin, offshore Western Australia
Start-up Year: 2013
Upstream Gas Reserves: 1,300 billion ft³
Water Depth: 162 m
Upstream condensate reserves: 67 million boe
The Crux field is located in Production Licence AC/L9 in the Browse Basin, offshore Western Australia and was acquired by Nexus in January 2006. Nexus is operator of AC/L9 and holds 85% equity in the liquids resource with joint venture partner Osaka Gas holding the remaining 15%. Shell Development Australia holds the rights to 100% of the gas resource within the permit and under the current contract can access the gas in 2021. Average water depth is around 170 metres with the major Crux reservoir at 3,800 metres. Five intersections of the Crux field have been drilled to date and around 280km2 of 3D seismic has been collected to delineate the structure. Importantly the Crux reservoir has high permeability and high porosity and the gas is low in CO2 and other impurities. In addition to the Crux gas condensate resource, upside potential has been identified around the undrilled Auriga and Caleum structures.
It is proposed to develop the Crux field as a liquids stripping project. The development concept is based on four subsea production wells and four subsea gas re-injection wells tied back to a custom built leased floating production storage and offloading vessel (FPSO). Crux appraisal and engineering has matured to a point where the proposed liquids project could be sanctioned within a short period of time. Nexus has received interest in Crux from domestic and international oil companies and continues to explore the option of a part sell-down and a development of the liquids project with the introduction of an additional new partner.
Operators:
Shell Australia Ltd.: Operator with 85% interest
Nexus Energy Ltd.: 12% interest
Osaka Gas: 3% interest
Contractors:
Cameron: Christmas trees
GE Oil & Gas Australia: Two gas turbine driven gas re-injection compressors trains
Mustang Engineering: FEED contract
McDermott: Project development engineering services
Thome Offshore Management Pte Ltd.: Operation and management of FPSO
SBM (Single Buoy Moorings)
Wellstream: Flowlines
Wood Group: PMC contract
Neptune: Geophysical and light geotechnical survey services contract. The work will start in November 2015 and includes a site survey of the Crux gas field and a 160kilometres route survey between the Crux and Prelude gas fields, in water depths ranging from 90metres to 280metres. Neptune will collect high resolution Multi Beam Echo Sounder (MBES), Side Scan Sonar (SSS) and Sub Bottom Profiler (SBP) data on-board the ‘Mermaid Investigator’ Offshore Supply Vessel (OSV).