Features, challenges and opportunities in Australian gas and oil technology

The oil and gas industry is truly global, and yet each petroleum province has important local features and challenges. Various facets of the UK and Australian petroleum sectors are compared, including: overall oil and gas endowment; historical and future production; offshore infrastructure; met-ocean characteristics and their influence on facility configuration and integrity; and human resources trends. Two particular infrastructure issues for the Australian industry are highlighted. The first is the unusual structural reliability characteristics of monopod platforms, which are the dominant production facility type on the North West Shelf. The second is the need for innovative subsea production system technology to facilitate the development of large, remote, deepwater gas fields in the region. With various similarities–and a number of important disparities–between the two petroleum provinces, closer collaboration would appear to offer complementary benefits.