Infrastructure

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Transporting People and Equipment

Victoria is the most densely populated state of Australia. The sedimentary basins lie in generally flat, dairy, beef or sheep country in the south of the State. This has led to an extensive road network which enables vehicles to travel intrastate and interstate easily. This means, for example, that vibrators can be trucked along sealed roads virtually to their starting point. Services for camps are available in multiple regional centres.

Table 1: Flying time to Melbourne

The operational areas in Otway and Gippsland Basin are less than a three-hour drive from Melbourne. Melbourne’s International Airport is a 20-minute drive from the city and connects Melbourne to international cities by all major international airlines (Table 1).

Victoria has several ports that can accommodate seismic vessels and perform repairs or maintenance: Port Melbourne, Port of Geelong and Portland (Otway Basin); and Exxon Mobil’s Barry Beach terminal (Gippsland Basin). Because it takes time to sail boats and rigs to Victorian waters (Table 2), most operators work together to coordinate seismic or drilling campaigns to reduce mob/demob costs.

Table 2: Seismic Vessel and Rig Sailing Times to Bass Strait

Petroleum Processing Plants

Gippsland Basin

Longford The majority of Victoria’s oil and gas is processed at Exxon Mobil’s Longford plant (see Figure 1). Crude oil and gas are transported via pipeline from offshore facilities in the Gippsland Basin to the Longford Crude Stabilisation Plant where they are separated into wet gas, LPG and stabilised crude oil. The stabilised crude oil is piped to Long Island Point on Westernport Bay where it is either:

• Shipped interstate
• Shipped internationally
• Piped to the refineries in Altona or Geelong
  

Wet gas from the offshore fields and the crude stabilisation plant is fed into the Longford gas plants where dry gas is separated from LPG, ethane and condensate. The Longford gas plants have a peak production capacity of about 1,000 TJ/day of natural gas and over 8 million litres/day of raw LPG. Condensate from the gas plant is sent with the stabilised crude to Long Island Point

Dry gas from Longford is supplied to the South East Australian gas market via the transmission pipeline network.

The LPG recovered from the crude stabilisation and gas plants is piped to the Long Island Fractionation Plant. The LPG is either shipped to interstate Australia and overseas markets or stored at the LPG storage plant in Dandenong, for distribution by truck within Victoria. Extracted ethane is piped to a petrochemical plant at Altona where it is used as chemical feedstock.

Patricia Baleen Santos’s Patricia Baleen plant in East Victoria feeds gas into the Eastern Gas Pipeline. The plant has a capacity of about 75 T/J a day. The plant initially produced gas from the Patricia Baleen field but it now processes gas from Nexus’ Longtom field.

Basker Manta Roc Oil produces oil from its Basker Manta field through an FPSO. Peak oil production is 20,000 bopd and the shuttle tankers deliver crude to east coast refineries.

Bass Gas The Origin Energy processing plant near Lang Lang in Gippsland services the Yolla field, which is located in the Bass Basin within Tasmanian waters. The plant delivers annually, about 23 petajoules of sales gas per annum (54 TJ/day average), 80,000 tonnes of LPG and 1.2 million bbl of condensate.

Otway Basin

Iona TRUenergy’s Iona gas processing plant has production capacity about 320 TJ/day.

Otway Gas Project Woodside’s Otway gas processing plant has a peak capacity of 205 TJ/day.

Minerva BHP Billiton’s Minerva gas plant has a peak capacity of 150 TJ/day.

In addition, there are two small gas plants (North Paaratte and Heytesbury) currently mothballed but with a capacity of approx 25 TJ/day.

TRUenergy operates gas storage facilities in the Otway Basin:

• Iona gas storage facility uses the depleted Iona gas field. It has a peak withdrawal capacity of 250 TJ/day
• Wallaby Creek and North Paaratte depleted fields have been commissioned as part an expansion of the Iona facility to 500 TJ/day
  

Pipeline Infrastructure

An extensive network of transmission pipelines connects major gas markets and gas producing areas in Queensland, South Australia, Victoria, Tasmania and New South Wales (see Figure 2).

Victoria is served by over 30,000km of gas reticulation, distribution and transmission pipelines. The Victorian gas transmission pipeline network is shown at Figure 3.

In addition to natural gas pipelines, there is a network of LPG, crude and refined oil pipelines, as well as dedicated lines to carry jet fuel and other hydrocarbons.

Third Party Access to Gas Pipelines

Reforms in the gas market have led to the establishment of a national gas access regime which provides an open and transparent process for third party access to natural gas pipelines Third party access to covered natural gas transmission and distribution pipelines is regulated by the Australian Energy Regulator under the National Gas Law and National Gas Rules.

There is no third party access regime for pipelines or facilities offshore. Access to pipelines delivering petroleum from offshore fields to processing facilities is by agreement between companies.

Refineries in Victoria

Longford Processing Plant, Gippsland, photo courtesy of Exxon Mobil

There are two oil refineries in Victoria:

• The Altona refinery (in the western suburbs of Melbourne) is operated by ExxonMobil and has maximum production capacity of 80,000 bbl/d
• The Geelong refinery (75km southwest of Melbourne) is operated by Shell and has a maximum production capacity of 120,000 b/sd.
  

There is a fractionation plant and crude storage facility at Stony Point on Western Port Bay. Exxon Mobil operates the Stony Point plant and the products from can be loaded directly into a tanker at the adjacent jetty for export.

The Australian and Victorian Pipeline Maps are included with permission of Great Southern Press.

If you would like to receive this publication in an accessible format (such as large print or audio) please call the Customer Service Centre on: 136 186, TTY: 1800 122 969, or email: customer.service@dpi.vic.gov.au

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