| Industry | oil and gas exploration |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1952 |
Number of locations | Australia-wide |
Area served | Australia |
West Australian Petroleum Pty Ltd (WAPET) was a pioneer oil and gas exploration and processing company in Western Australia.
Formed in March 1952 as a joint venture between Caltex and Ampol, [1] the company discovered Australia's first flowing oil in November the following year, at Rough Range on the North West Cape. [2] The first oil discovery in Australia was made near Lakes Entrance, Victoria in 1924. [3]
The Rough Range well flowed with heavy crude oil, initially at 400 barrels (64 m3) per day from a depth of 1099 metres, but further drilling in 1954 demonstrated the discovery to be small with low flow rates and it was deemed to be not commercial.
In 1964 WAPET discovered the first commercial natural gas field in the state, at Dongara in the Perth Basin. [4] The Dongara field is now wholly owned by Arc Energy and has produced 452.6×109 cu ft (1.282×1010 m3) of LNG to August 2007. [5]
The Dongara discovery resulted in the construction of the first gas pipeline in Western Australia, from Dongara to Pinjarra in 1971 by a WAPET subsidiary, West Australian Natural Gas (WANG). Also known as the Parmelia Pipeline, it comprises 416 km of 350 mm diameter pipe. [6]
The company was joined by Shell Development as a partner in 1964 and shortly after, the joint venture made their major find, on Barrow Island. Despite an expectation of likely oil deposits, Barrow Island had had Government bans on drilling and exploration due to the 1952 atomic bomb testing on the nearby Montebello Islands. The bans were lifted in 1953 and WAPET was granted exploration permits. The drill hole "Barrow-1" flowed with heavy crude and proved to be a significant discovery. After $100 million had been spent on further exploration and development, the find led to commercial production in 1967. [2] In 1966 it was estimated to have recoverable reserves of 85 million barrels (13,500,000 m3) and after production started in April 1967, estimated reserves were increased to 250 million barrels (40,000,000 m3). [7] In 1995 there were 430 wells producing oil and natural gas across most of the southern half of the island. [8] At one stage, the site was Australia's largest oil producer.[ citation needed ]
As a result of the success at Barrow Island and other finds, extensive off-shore exploration in the Carnarvon Basin was undertaken by Australian and American oil companies during the late 1960s and 1970s. WAPET discovered a significant gas deposit at West Tryal Rocks, north west of Barrow Island in 1973, and in 1980 the Gorgon gas deposit. The region is now known as "Greater Gorgon" and will be developed in coming years as the Gorgon gas project, operated by Chevron, WAPET's successor. LNG reserves in the Greater Gorgon fields are estimated to exceed 40 trillion cubic feet (1,100 km3).
WAPET became Chevron Australia Pty Ltd in February 2000. [9] [10]
The history of the petroleum industry in the United States goes back to the early 19th century, although the indigenous peoples, like many ancient societies, have used petroleum seeps since prehistoric times; where found, these seeps signaled the growth of the industry from the earliest discoveries to the more recent.
Chevron Corporation is an American multinational energy corporation. One of the successor companies of Standard Oil, it is headquartered in San Ramon, California, and active in more than 180 countries. Chevron is engaged in every aspect of the oil and natural gas industries, including hydrocarbon exploration and production; refining, marketing and transport; chemicals manufacturing and sales; and power generation. Chevron is one of the world's largest companies; as of March 2020, it ranked fifteenth in the Fortune 500 with a yearly revenue of $146.5 billion and market valuation of $136 billion. In the 2020 Forbes Global 2000, Chevron was ranked as the 61st-largest public company in the world. It was also one of the Seven Sisters that dominated the global petroleum industry from the mid-1940s to the 1970s. Chevron is incorporated in California.
BG Group plc was a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in Reading, United Kingdom. On 8 April 2015, Royal Dutch Shell announced that it had reached an agreement to acquire BG Group for $70 billion, subject to regulatory and shareholder agreement. The sale was completed on 15 February 2016. Prior to the takeover, BG Group was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. In the 2015 Forbes Global 2000, BG Group was ranked as the 583rd largest public company in the world.
Barrow Island is a 202 km2 (78 sq mi) island 50 kilometres (31 mi) northwest off the Pilbara coast of Western Australia. The island is the second largest in Western Australia after Dirk Hartog Island.
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APA Corporation is the holding company for Apache Corporation, a company engaged in hydrocarbon exploration. It is organized in Delaware and headquartered in Houston. The company is ranked 465th on the Fortune 500.
INPEX Corporation is a Japanese oil company established in February 1966 as North Sumatra Offshore Petroleum Exploration Co., Ltd. INPEX is the largest oil and gas exploration and production company in Japan, with global exploration, development and production projects in 20 countries. In the 2020 Forbes Global 2000, Inpex was ranked as the 597th -largest public company in the world.
Shell Australia is the Australian subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell. Shell has operated in Australia since 1901, initially delivering bulk fuel into Australia, then establishing storage and distribution terminals, oil refineries, and a network of service stations. It extended its Australian activities to oil exploration, petrochemicals and coal mining, and became a leading partner in Australia's largest resource development project, the North West Shelf Venture.
The exploration of the Arctic for petroleum is considered to be quite technically challenging. However, recent technological developments, as well as relatively high oil prices, have allowed for exploration. As a result, the region has received significant interest from the petroleum industry.
Canada's early petroleum discoveries took place near population centres or along lines of penetration into the frontier.
Noble Energy, Inc. was a company engaged in hydrocarbon exploration headquartered in Houston, Texas. In October 2020, the company was acquired by Chevron Corporation.
The Cooper Basin is a Permian-Triassic sedimentary geological basin in Australia. The basin is located mainly in the southwest part of Queensland and extends into north eastern South Australia. It is named after the Cooper Creek which is an ephemeral river that runs into Lake Eyre. For most of its extent, it is overlain by the Eromanga Basin. It covers 130,000 km².
The North West Shelf Venture, situated in the north-west of Western Australia, is Australia's largest resource development project. It involves the extraction of petroleum at offshore production platforms, onshore processing and export of liquefied natural gas, and production of natural gas for industrial, commercial and domestic use within the state.
The Gorgon gas project is a multi-decade natural gas project in Western Australia, involving the development of the Greater Gorgon gas fields, subsea gas-gathering infrastructure, and a liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant on Barrow Island. The project also includes a domestic gas component. Construction was completed in 2017.
The petroleum industry in Western Australia is the largest contributor to Australia's production of most petroleum products.
Cairn India was an Indian oil and gas exploration and production company, headquartered in Gurgaon, India. The company was merged with Vedanta Limited.
The Rosebank oil and gas field lies west of Shetland. It is operated by Equinor; Suncor and Siccar Point. The discovery well was drilled in 2004. A final investment decision for Rosebank is planned to be taken by May 2022.
The oil industry in Poland began with the first oil well in the world, at Bóbrka Field in 1853, followed by the first refinery in 1854. Poland was the third most productive region in the world in 1900. It now has only a small, mostly state-owned component, with production from its Permian Basin in the west, small and very old fields in the Carpathians in the south, and offshore in the Baltic Sea. For natural gas the country is almost completely dependent on legacy pipelines from the former Soviet Union.
Bangladesh is the nineteenth-largest producer of natural gas in Asia. Gas supplies meet 56% of domestic energy demand. However, the country faces an acute energy crisis in meeting the demands of its vast and growing population. Bangladesh is a net importer of crude oil and petroleum products. The energy sector is dominated by state-owned companies, including Petrobangla and the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation. Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Equinor, Gazprom and ONGC are major international companies engaged in Bangladesh's hydrocarbon industry, with Chevron's gas fields accounting for 50% of natural gas production.
The petroleum industry in Sudan began in earnest in 1979, when the first commercial flow in the country occurred.
