In February 2003, ICON Engineering was employed by Newfield Petroleum to perform a study of the abandonment of the Jabiru Field.  

The Jabiru oil field is located in the Timor Sea, approximately 650 km due west of Darwin and approximately 20km north of the Challis Field. The water depth is approximately 120m.

A total of 15 wells had been drilled, of which 5 were producing oil through subsea flowlines and an anchored Riser Turret Mooring (RTM) to a disconnectable floating production facility.

The scope of the study included:

• Investigate disconnecting the Jabiru Venture FPSO, sinking the RTM, mid depth buoys and moorings in place.
• Investigate disconnecting the JV, removing the risers, mid depth buoys, moorings and RTM, towing to Challis or other deepwater location and sinking.
• Investigate disconnecting the JV, removing the risers, mid depth buoys, moorings and RTM, transporting to sales/scrapping location and sell for scrap/put in landfill or breakwater.

For all options an assessment of cost, technical risk and the identification of high safety risk operations were undertaken.

A number of options were identified for abandoning the field. These ranged from complete removal of the facilities to leaving the majority of components in situ on the seabed.

ICON produced a report outlining the costs and issues associated with the various options to assist the client in discussions with regulatory authorities.

The report was also valuable to Newfield as they were in the process of divestment of this asset.

In addition to the technical report, CAD images were also prepared by our graphics specialists to more clearly illustrate a number of issues to the non-technical members of the regulatory authorities.

Realization: Seabed dumping permits were obtained for the Challis SALRAM and Jabiru RTM in 2004 and 2011 respectively. The Jabiru field ceased production in 2010.

Largely in line with the ICON study recommendations: Wells were plugged and abandoned by MODU of convenience in 2011, the FPSO was removed in 2011, MDBs were moved to the Challis location and disposed on seabed, flowlines and FPSO moorings were disposed insitu.