JAKARTA (rambuenergy.com) – Inpex Masela Ltd, the Indonesian operation unit of Japan’s Inpex Corporation and the operator of Masela Block in Arafura Sea in eastern Indonesia, has launched tender for the verification of casing tubing design study as well as sand production analysis.
The tender is offered to relevant bidders with relevant experiences, capabilities with applicable Indonesian permits for the subject services.
The main scope of the contract is to conduct a casing tubing design verification study for 2 well design ( (“monobore – Option A and Big bore hybrid – option E) and give comprehensive report with recommendation to determine the optimal tubular design.
Casing and tubing strings are the main parts of the well construction. All wells drilled to produce oil or gas production (or injecting materials into underground formations) must be cased with material with sufficient strength and functionality.
The verification will help the operator to design casing and tubing load calculations for wells and help the operator to choose casing size, weight, grade and material in order to withstand maximum exposure loads through the life cycle of the well. These tubulars are part of the well barrier envelopes and are critical for the safety of personnel, protection of environment and assets. Independent verification of these critical calculations should be performed.
Inpex Masela also opens tender for sand production analysis. the scope of the work is to conduct laboratory analysis on cores to determine core characteristicx including porosity, permeability, density, with unconfined compressive strength (UCS) and Thick Wall Cylinder (TWC) measurement.
Inpex sets minimum local content requirement of 40 percent for the two projects.
Registration and collection of pre-qualification documents shall be within Feb. 5-12, 2016 during working hours at Inpex Office (Procurement Committee, INPEX Masela Ltd, 35th Floor, TCC- Batavia Tower One, Jln K.H. Mas Mansyrur Kav 126, Jakarta 10220 Indonesia).
The required pre-qualification documents must be submitted no later than Feb. 15, 2016.
Waiting for POD Approval
Inpex is now waiting for the approval of revised plan of development (PoD) for Abadi Field within Masela Block. The approval of the PoD, which was originally planned for end October 2015, is now delayed until President Joko Widodo makes the final decision.
The Indonesian President Joko Widodo on Feb. 1, 2016 held a limited cabinet meeting attended by Vice President Jusuf Kalla, cabinet ministers as well as Maluku governor Said Assagaff. The main agenda was on the plan of development (PoD) of mega gas project Masela Block.
Inpex has submitted the revised Plan of Development (PoD) for Abadi Field in Masela Block worth around US$14 billion in second half last year. The Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry (ESDM) earlier attempted to approve the PoD in October last year. However, the public debate over whether the operator should develop onshore facilities or floating LNG (FLNG) facilities has caused the approval to be delayed.
The key PoD proposed by Inpex was developing offshore facilities, namely Floating LNG (FLNG), instead of onshore plant. Developing onshore facilities are considered to be too costly and inefficient.
Currently, Inpex holds 65 percent working interest in Masela Block and the remaining 35 percent is held by Shell.
A local company, PT Energi Mega Persada, owned by Bakrie Group, earlier held 10 percent working interest in the Masela Block. However, the company has sold its participating interest back to Inpex due to financial difficulties.
The block contains huge gas reserves of around 10.7 trillion cubic feet (tcf).
The Abadi Field project would take several years before it could come onstream. Design engineering and final investment decision (FID) will take place in the next three years and if things go ahead as planned, the construction would begin in 2019 and then would come onstream in 2023-2024.
The existing operator’s contract to develop the Masela block will expire in 2028. Inpex has earlier requested the government to extend its contract to another 20 years after 2028. The company argues if the project would come onstream in 2024, its investment will not recover its investment.
Under the existing regulation, oil and gas companies are only allowed to seek extension 10 years before contract expires, meaning that Inpex is only allowed to seek extension from 2019. This is another issue that needs to be resolved by the Indonesian government.
Block Masela which is operated by Inpex, with its non-0perating partner Shell, covers 4,291.35 square kilometers area, about 800 km to the east of Kupang town, the capital of NTT and over 400 km from Darwin, Australia at water depth of 300-1,000 meters. (*)
Edited by Roffie Kurniawan (email: roffie.kurniawan@gmail.com)
I have a question for INPEX? Is it correct that the life of Ichthys gas & condensate reserves will last for 40 years? I doubt that…..
The life of the Ichthys gas field (as per the gas reserves of 12.8 TCF and at annual LNG production of 8.9 Million tons) will not be 40 years. At best it will be 25 years if the reserves are 100% recoverable.
Simple & direct calculation is as follow:
To produce 8.9 million tons of LNG per year and 1.6 million tons of LPG, it is required a feed gas rate of 1.65 BSCF/day to the onshore plant, Hence the life of the gas reserves will be: =(12.8 )/(0.00165 x 335)=23.16 years. Providing a shut down for one month is carried out every year for maintenance.
The 23 years may go down if other loses during production is considered such as flaring during unplanned shutdown, plant upset and methane loses in the nitrogen rejection unit during purification of LNG.
Also, according to the condensate reserves of 550 million bbls and at condensate production of 100,000 bbls/day, the condensate production will only last for 16.5 years.
It is highly likely that this investment will be a burden on INPEX and on TOTAL because at current price of 45 US dollar a barrel and at 5 US dollar per MMBTU the total revenue for the life of the Ichthys projects will not exceed 89 billion Us dollars. If operating cost is deducted and the money to pay back the lenders and the banks is taken from the total revenue then profit per year will be nothing hence this project will not deliver a good rate of return for it’s 38 billion US dollar investment.
Bassam El Wazni