Woodside Petroleum Lots Dealing With Corrosion Issue

Woodside Petroleum Ltd. said Monday that it will begin drilling at its jointly-owned Sangomar Offshore and Sangomar Deep Offshore oil wells this week.The Australian oil-and-gas company said the wells can produce 100,000 barrels of crude oil per day, and remain on track to begin oil production in 2023.

Woodside Petroleum Ltd is rectifying a corrosion issue identified during planned maintenance at the Karratha gas plant in Western Australia, a company spokesperson said on Friday. A spokesperson said that they have discussed with the regulator and are taking all necessary measures to ensure the ongoing safety of our people and operations. They also said that there was no material impact on Woodside’s current production guidance.The spokesperson did not provide any further details on the corrosion. The Karratha gas plant, part of the North West Shelf venture operated by Woodside, has an export capacity of 16.9 million tonnes per annum, with five LNG processing trains, two domestic gas trains, six condensate stabilisation units and three LPG fractionation units.

It was not immediately clear where the corrosion occurred or how serious the issue was, but a source familiar with the matter said it could have occurred in one of the LNG production trains which had been shut for planned maintenance. According to Woodside’s website, maintenance had been scheduled on an LNG train from June 18 to July 18 and another over Aug. 13 to Sept. 12, though it was not immediately clear if these were on separate production trains.

The NWS project, operated by Woodside, counts the Australian units of BHP Group (BHP.AX), BP (BP.L), Chevron (CVX.N), Shell (RDSa.L) among its part owners. Japan Australia LNG, a joint venture between Japan’s Mitsubishi Corp (8058.T) and Mitsui & Co. (8031.T), is also a part-owner of the NWS project.