Energy Services Group Kent Awarded Contract for Decommissioning of Laminaria-Corallina Oil Fields
Energy services group Kent has been awarded a new technical advisory services contract by the Australian government to support the permanent plugging and abandonment of the Laminaria-Corallina oil fields in the Timor Sea.
The contract also includes advisory services for the safe removal of associated subsea infrastructure.
The contract was awarded following the company’s previous work on the decommissioning of the Northern Endeavour FPSO.
Under the initial two-year contract, Kent will deploy a multidisciplinary team of technical and regulatory experts to provide strategic and operational support throughout the planning and execution of the decommissioning phase.
The FPSO unit is moored between the Laminaria and Corallina fields in the Timor Sea. After the unit’s former operator, Northern Oil & Gas Australia, entered voluntary administration in September 2019, the ownership of the unit was transferred to the Commonwealth of Australia.
Australia’s Department of Industry has so far awarded around AUD 850m ($557m) in contracts for the decommissioning of the unit, more than twice the original estimate from 2015.
This excludes all work on plug and abandonment of subsea wells, as well as removal of seabed equipment. The final decommissioning budget when all is said and done will probably be around $1bn.