Finding ways to deliver more gas to Australia

The Esso Australia Longford Gas Plants team is rising to the current energy challenge, and is on-track to deliver our highest annual gas production in the last five years. 

The day after Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) issued a “threat to system security”, the team successfully increased production rates generating as much essential gas as possible to a market in need.

With an impending cold snap and global supply chains heavily impacted due to COVID19 and the conflict in Ukraine, the Esso Australia team focused on optimising production across our facilities and pipelines to meet the anticipated increased demand.

“We believe that every Australian home and business deserves to have access to reliable and affordable energy, and the team at Esso Australia is working hard to deliver the essential energy that Australians rely on,” said Geoff Humphreys, Esso Production Manager.

“By utilising one of our pipelines that would traditionally carry fuel offshore to bring additional gas onshore, we have been able to increase production rates from 970 terajoules to 1020 terajoules per day.

“Following the success of this initiative, we are continuing to work to bring even more additional production capacity on, including working with AEMO and Jemena to optimise our systems to meet this increased demand.”

“We’re extremely proud that we have been able to increase our production of Gippsland gas to meet Australia’s increasing needs, and to ensure that we can sustain these rates over winter,” said Geoff. 

“Our ability to respond to these challenges by ramping up Gippsland production is only possible because of our ongoing investment in bringing more gas supplies online, including the $400M West Barracouta project, completed in April 2021."

"We are currently progressing further investments, including the Kipper Compression project announced earlier this year, which will bring on much needed additional supply,” Geoff continued.

Helping the team to achieve the high gas production is the safe and effective completion of essential maintenance within Gas Plant 2, so that the plant was back to full capacity and ready to respond to the increased demand for gas during winter.

“This was a complex job which involved collaboration between Longford Maintenance Operations, Engineering and a number of our key contractors. The success of this project can be credited to a one-team approach, underpinned by a strong safety focus, dedicated and flexible work groups, strong planning and evaluation of the risks and work practices and adaptable scheduling,” he said.

“I’m really proud of the Esso Australia team who have responded so quickly to the current energy challenges faced in eastern Australia.  Esso sells all of our gas to the Australian domestic market, all of the time, and our people are working hard to meet current demand and deliver the energy Australia needs.”