Cooper Starts up Oz Orbost Gas Plant
Sydney-listed Cooper Energy on December 9 said that reconfiguration work at the Orbost gas processing plant had been completed as planned and contractual gas supply to industrial customers had begun.
The gas plant, which is owned and operated by gas infrastructure company APA, will process gas from Cooper’s Sole gas field offshore Victoria for supply to customers in south-east Australia. Its commissioning enables the start of the field’s term supply contracts and processing tariff payments by Cooper to APA.
The plant's performance has been impaired by unexplained foaming in the absorber section of the sulphur recovery unit. Work fixing the problem started on November 14 and involved reconfiguring the plant's absorbers to operate parallel, sequentially, or independently. This enabled higher sustained production rates and greater operational flexibility.
Contractual gas supplies to Visy began on December 1 as planned, with deliveries coming from alternative sources until Sole restarted production on December 8, Cooper said. Sole was producing at a rate of 25 terajoules/day (23.6mn ft3/day) on the morning of December 9.
Any extra gas not supplied to Visy will be sold on the spot gas market until the remaining supply contracts come into force on January 1, Cooper said. Total annual supply will then reach 19.75 petajoules/year, which is equivalent to a daily rate of 54 terajoules/day. Around 90% of this volume is covered by take-or-pay obligations, the company said.