Since 2003, there have been eight new FPSOs brought into waters off Western Australia, including the Front Puffin, which had its contract terminated by Sinopec and AED Oil last year.
The five most recent vessls, including the BHP Billiton-owned Pyrenees Venture and Prosafe Production’s Ningaloo Vision, which have just started operations this year, all have homes in the Exmouth sub-basin.
The Exmouth is a deep-water province that provided a number of medium-sized heavy oil finds in the early 2000s but has now fallen off the exploration radar, though US independent Apache has recently found enough oil at the Coniston-Novara pool to tie into the Ningaloo Vision FPSO, which it leases from Prosafe on the Van Gogh oilfield.
The
