Australia’s Woodside Energy is forging ahead with key field developments both on its home turf and overseas.

The Scarborough and Pluto Train 2 projects in Western Australia are now 30% complete, and fabrication of the floating production unit’s hull and topsides has ramped up.

McDermott of the US is the key engineering, procurement, construction, installation and commissioning contractor for the Scarborough FPU and the topsides, which will weigh approximately 30,000 tonnes, are being constructed at the company’s joint venture yard, Qingdao McDermott Wuchuan, in China.

Manufacturing of the projects’ gas export trunkline is now 86% complete and first concrete was poured for Pluto Train 2 earlier this year.

“We are making good progress on all major growth projects in Australia and globally. The Scarborough and Pluto Train 2 projects are now 30% complete, with construction of key offshore and onshore infrastructure ramping up. First concrete has now been poured on the Pluto Train 2 site,” said Woodside chief executive, Meg O’Neill.

“Engagement with stakeholders and regulators on secondary environmental approvals for offshore execution activities continued [during the first quarter].”

Meanwhile, development drilling for the operator’s Sangomar phase one development offshore Senegal has progressed, with 10 of 23 wells complete as of 31 March.

In tandem, topsides integration and pre-commissioning works for the Sangomar floating production, storage and offloading vessel continued at now-Sembcorp Marine subsidiary Keppel Offshore & Marine’s Tuas yard in Singapore.

“The Sangomar development drilling programme is nearing its halfway point, with 10 of 23 wells completed. Installation and testing of the rigid flowlines, which total 101 kilometres in length, were successfully and safely completed. This is a key milestone on the path to targeted first oil later this year,” added O’Neill.

Also, Woodside is still aiming this year to progress its Trion project offshore Mexico to final investment decision readiness.

“At the Trion project in the Gulf of Mexico, we have received tenders for key equipment and activities including the floating production unit, long-lead rotating equipment, subsea equipment, drilling rig and installation scopes as we target FID readiness this year,” she said.

Woodside is collaborating with state-owned Pemex and Mexico’s National Hydrocarbons Commission on the draft field development plan, which would be submitted to the regulator following project sanction.

Meanwhile, back on home turf, Woodside has started front-end engineering design and identified long-lead order requirements for its Lambert West development.

Lambert West consists of one production well developed via a subsea tie-back to the Angel platform to support ongoing production from the North West Shelf (NWS) project.

Woodside’s production in the first quarter averaged 520,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, done 9% from the previous three months due to planned turnaround and maintenance activities.

Production decreased compared to the previous quarter to 46.8 million barrels of oil equivalent, primarily due to the planned turnaround on Ngujima-Yin floating production, storage and offloading vessel together with planned onshore and offshore maintenance activities and lower Australian east coast gas market demand on Bass Strait.

The Ngujima-Yin FPSO commenced a planned five-yearly maintenance turnaround in a Singapore drydock and is expected to return to production in the third quarter.

This lower output coupled with lower realised commodity prices translated into a 16% revenue slump for the Australian player — down to US$4.33 billion in the three months ended 31 March.

However, production, sales volumes and revenue increased 122%, 112% and 81% respectively from one-year prior, driven by the expanded upstream operations following Woodside’s acquisition of BHP Petroleum.

Another first quarter highlight for Woodside was achieving high reliability at its liquefied natural gas plants — 99.9% at Pluto LNG and 98.3% at the NWS project, both in Australia.