The development of the Australian oil industry:

The first drilling carried out for the purpose of discovering oil was in the Coorong area of South Australia in 1892. Unfortunately, the shallow hole was dry. Later in 1900, the first petroleum discovery was made near Roma, Queensland, when a water bore intersected a natural gas field. Offshore, the first oil well was drilled in the Albany harbour in Western Australia in 1907. Australia’s first oil field was discovered at Lake Bunga near Lakes Entrance in the Gippsland Basin in 1924.

However, Australia’s commercial petroleum industry did not really commence until 1953. In November of that year, much excitement was generated by the discovery of oil at Rough Range in Western Australia. The discovery was made by West Australian Petroleum Pty Ltd (a joint venture between Ampol and Caltex) which began producing 550 barrels per day (a barrel contains about 160 litres) at Rough Range. Commercial production of petroleum on a large scale began on the Moonie oil field in Queensland in 1964. The search for petroleum intensified with widespread exploration and discoveries around Australia. One of the more notable finds included Barrow Island in the Carnarvon Basin, Western Australia, in 1964. Despite around 900 wells being drilled on Barrow Island, it has remained an “A” Class nature reserve.

The main petroleum discovery was made in the North West Shelf, located between 125 and 150 kilometres northwest of Dampier, Western Australia, in 1971. The North West Shelf (NWS) project has become Australia’s largest resource development. Operated by Woodside Offshore Petroleum, the NWS project consists of two major phases:

• The domestic gas phase, which supplies gas to Western Australia’s domestic market.
• The liquid natural gas (LNG phase), which supplies LNG for export primarily to Japan with other sales to the USA and Korea.

Google Earth - North West Shelf

The NWS project also produces crude oil from the Cossack, Wanaea, Lambert and Hermea oil and gas fields, about 30 kilometres northeast of North Rankin. During the 2004 financial year, the NWS project produced 36.9 million barrels of crude oil, 36.9 million barrels of condensate, 186 billion cubic feet of domestic gas, 8.0 million tonnes of LNG and 744,600 tonnes of LPG. For more information about natural gas and the North West Shelf Project.

Western Australia’s Griffin oil and gas project commenced in 1994 at the Carnarvon Basin, some 68 kilometres offshore from Onslow. The Griffin operator is BHP Billiton Petroleum. During the 2005 financial year, the project produced 3.9 million barrels of crude oil and 5.95 billion standard cubic feet of gas sales.

For more information, go to:
http://www.bhpbilliton.com/

A new oilfield was discovered in 2003 on the offshore North West Cape near Exmouth. The new Stybarrow oilfield is jointly owned by BHP Billiton and Woodside, with BHP Billiton the operator. It is Australia’s deepest oil field development, with a water depth of about 825 metres. Stybarrow is expected to process about 80,000 barrels of liquids a day. First production is planned for the first quarter of 2008.

For more information go to:
www.bhpbilliton.com

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