Sydney, 6 June — The state government of Australia’s Victoria has granted final approvals for Australian independent Beach Energy’s Enterprise gas field in the Otway basin.
The government gave the go-ahead on 6 June for the nearshore Enterprise, which Beach said has proved and probable reserves of 160PJ (4.27bn m³), on the condition that the firm make best endeavours to sell to domestic customers first.
Victoria, Australia’s largest domestic gas consuming state, has a permanent ban on hydraulic fracturing used to extract unconventional resources and lifted a May 2014 moratorium on conventional onshore gas exploration and development in mid-2021. It also restricts new gas connections for residential and commercial users to reduce demand.
Beach’s January-March report advised it was targeting first gas from Enterprise during April-June after receiving regulatory approval for final construction works at the well site, near the western Victorian coastal town of Port Campbell.
The Otway gas plant (OGP) will process gas from the Enterprise 1 well but the size of the 205 TJ/d (5.47mn m³/d) plant, which produced 100 TJ/d during January-March, will not be increased.
The Australian Energy Market Operator’s (Aemo) Victorian Gas Planning Report (VGPR) update from March 2024 forecast the Port Campbell region, which includes OGP, will increase output from the 38PJ produced in 2023 to 55PJ in 2024 because of new supplies. The new supplies from Enterprise and the offshore Thylacine West 1 and 2 wells in the first half of 2025 will enable OGP to reach its nameplate capacity, Aemo said. But delays to connection of the wells meant the agency cut its forecast Port Campbell production for 2024 from the 73PJ outlook in its 2023 VGPR.
Victoria is critically short of gas largely because of falling output from the Gippsland Basin Joint Venture, operated by ExxonMobil, which will reduce capacity at its 1,150 TJ/d Longford plant this year.
Two LNG import terminals are proposed for Victoria but both are yet to receive environmental approvals from the state government.
Victoria is targeting 2GW of offshore wind capacity by 2032 and 9GW by 2040, which is in doubt because of a federal rejection of a planned seaport terminal needed to service the proposed turbines, which may result in higher gas-fired power utilisation as the state’s coal-fired power plants retire.
