The Corowa and Amulet Developments, both in the North West Shelf, are the first oil developments to be accepted via the OPP regime; and only the fourth and fifth OPPs to be accepted in Australia. 

KATO’s strategy is to target stranded uneconomic fields too small for a standalone development. Both the Corowa and Amulet fields, which are 335km apart, fall into this category. KATO is  developing them by using the innovative ‘honeybee production system’, which involves a relocatable jack-up platform, a short subsea flowline and an FSO; which will directly offload to export tankers. 

KATO Director Joe Graham said: “Having worked in partnership with Xodus over the last two years on these key approvals, KATO is very pleased with the NOPSEMA decision on the Amulet and Corowa Development projects. It is a great outcome, culminating from an extremely thorough process and provides the surety KATO needs to progress the projects into FEED.  The fields will be our first to utilise KATO’s modular production system that takes uneconomic and stranded assets into production.” 

Xodus believes the Amulet and Corowa Developments could be considered as ‘the right projects at the right time’ when looking at Australia’s overall energy transition journey. The concept is short-term, responsive to changes in markets and policies and has a small physical footprint and absolute volume of emissions. 

Naomi Kerp, Principal Environmental Consultant at Xodus said: “We were extremely pleased to support KATO on the rigorous environmental impact assessment which ensured no significant impacts. Through this process the team was able to demonstrate acceptability of the projects under the International Energy Agency’s Sustainable Development Scenario, which is designed to achieve the Paris Agreement goal of keeping global temperature increases within 1.5oC. This is something that together we take very seriously and is a shared global goal.” 

The federal approval is the first of four which will be required before work can start.