Barrow Island: Cyclone Nicholas passes Chevron's operations with minimal disruption
Chevron back in action after Oz cyclone
Chevron has resumed full operations at Barrow and Thevenard Islands today as Tropical Cyclone Nicholas passed to the west of Barrow Island yesterday, but over 200,000 barrels per day of output from other producers remained shut in.
“The workforce has returned and full production is expected to be under way by the end of the day,” a spokesman for Chevron told UpstreamOnline.
Output totalling about 220,000 bpd was shut in over the weekend after operators, including Woodside Petroleum, Apache, BHP Billiton and AED Oil, shut their offshore operations due to the powerful cyclone off the Western Australia coast.
Chevron shut in a combined output of 9000 bpd at Barrow and Thevenard on Sunday as Cyclone Nicholas bore down on the Pilbara region on the remote north-western coast of Western Australia.
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology said the cyclone is moving in a general southerly direction and has weakened from a category three system to a category two system but was still packing wind gusts of up to 150 kilometres per hour.
Nicholas was estimated to be 85 kilometres west north-west of Exmouth and 175 kilometres north north-west of Coral Bay and moving south at 10 kilometres per hour, the bureau said on its website.
The Enfield and Cossack projects have been shut in since Friday and remain so, a spokesman for Perth-based Woodside said.
“Will restart as soon as possible but depends on the sea conditions – it's part of normal operations in this region,” the spokesman added.
Output at Enfield averaged 30,000 bpd at the end of December while the North West Shelf venture’s Cossack Pioneer vessel produced an average of 74,000 bpd in the December quarter.
BHP said on Sunday that it had suspended operations at the Stybarrow and Griffin fields. Stybarrow, in which Woodside has a 50% stake, started production in November and reached 80,000 bpd in December. Griffin produces about 8000 bpd, as well as some associated gas.
“Both fields are still disconnected and we are monitoring the situation – both floaters have been sailed outside of the cyclone’s path,” a spokeswoman for BHP told UpstreamOnline.
Earlier in the week Apache halted production at the Stag and Legendre fields, while AED Oil shut in flows from Puffin.
Santos' Mutineer-Exeter field, which is also in the cyclone's path, is already shut in for maintenance.