Santos Energy

The deal for ConocoPhillips’s northern Australian portfolio will help the Australian company boost its position in the country’s gas market, as it gains majority ownership in a set of key assets including Darwin LNG and the Barossa project.

Santos Energy said its second and final flow test from the Dorado field suggests potential flow rates of around 30,000 B/D from each Caley reservoir production well.

Approximately $200 billion in projects worldwide are racing to be approved over the next 2 years. The race is not just to make FIDs on projects, but also to enter FEED work to lock in contractors before others do.

The green light for Santos Energy’s drilling program in the McArthur Basin comes after a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing in the Northern Territory was lifted in 2018.

After drilling the Dorado-2 appraisal well, operator Santos Energy now expects a big increase in gas resources from predrill estimates, adding to one of the largest oil resources ever found on Australia’s North West Shelf.

Santos signed a binding letter of intent to acquire a 14.3% interest in Petroleum Retention License 3, which contains the P’nyang natural gas field in Papua New Guinea.

The $2.15-billion deal gives the company an 80% ownership stake in what could be one of Australia’s largest offshore discoveries in years.