The BassGas joint venture in Australia is looking at the option of a new shallow-water production platform to be located on one of its satellite gas and condensate discoveries.

Sources said a similar style of platform to the joint venture’s Yolla facility is being examined.

The current platform is based on Arup Energy’s self-installing, relocatable ACE concept, which was built by Clough at Nippon Steel’s yard in Indonesia.

The unmanned Yolla platform sits in about 80 metres of water and features a 1200-tonne two-deck topside, a 1500-tonne jacket, and a 2000-tonne suction base.

The BassGas operator Origin Energy began feasibility work on Trefoil in the second half of last year, and is understood to be weighing up both the platform and an all-subsea tie-back solution. The joint venture has a five-year retention lease over Trefoil which expires in August 2020, and the conditions of that lease stipulate the joint venture must complete a full technical and economic analysis of the two lead options.

Joint venture partner AWE said recently the partnership was aiming “to accelerate development feasibility studies for the nearby Trefoil gas and condensate resource to take advantage of ullage in the system after 2020”.

The system referred to is the transportation of gas from the Yolla platform via a 150-kilometre subsea pipeline to a gas processing facility at Lang Lang in Victoria.

AWE also said recently the joint venture partners are keen to exploit the improving gas market conditions in Australia’s eastern states.

Trefoil is understood to contain nearly 50 million barrels of oil equivalent, while the smaller White Ibis, Rockhopper and Bass discoveries are all nearby.

New BassGas gas sales agreements are due to be completed in 2018, with “substantially higher pricing anticipated” leading to a step-up in revenue from new gas contract pricing in early 2019.

This improving market landscape — brought about by the massive gas demands of the three LNG projects in Queensland — present an “opportunity to accelerate the Trefoil development”, added AWE.

Sources said there is a likelihood that a pre-front end engineering and design contract could be awarded this year.

Gross production at BassGas (Yolla) in the quarter ended 31 December 2016 was down 32% over the previous quarter and comprised 3.1 petajoules of gas (2.9 billion cubic feet), 101,000 barrels of condensate and 7500 tonnes of liquid petroleum gas.

The owners of the Trefoil and Yolla fields are operator Origin Energy on 42.5%, AWE on 35%, Toyota Tsusho on 11.25% and Prize Petroleum on 11.25%.

However, Origin intends to divest its conventional upstream business via an initial public offering later this year.

A new publicly-listed pure upstream company called NewCo will emerge as a result.

NewCo will include Origin’s interests in the BassGas project, Otway gas project, Kupe gas project, and the Perth, Cooper, Bonaparte and Canterbury basins.

Origin Energy will retain its interests in the Australia Pacific LNG project, the Ironbark field and the Browse and Beetaloo basins.