Australia´s North West Shelf Venture is progressing with design work on the development of the Western Flank gas fields that will be tied into existing LNG infrastructure. The project includes the collective development of the Dixon, Wilcox, Sculptor and Rankin gas fields, all of which are understood to be within 50 kilometres of the Goodwyn production platform.

Gas and condensate from Goodwyn is exported to the nearby North Rankin platform where a 135-kilometre export subsea trunkline winds its way to the onshore gas plant on the Burrup Peninsula.

Woodside drilled two successful exploration wells on the complex. The Dixon-2 well, located in block WA-9-R about a kilometre east of the Dixon-1 discovery well, intersected a gross hydrocarbon column of around 86 metres. The Pemberton-1 exploration well in block WA-28-P encountered a 65.5 metre gross gas column in good quality reservoir sands in the Mungaroo formation. Block WA-28-P contains the producing Echo/Yodel gas and condensate fields, and is adjacent to block WA-9-R.

The Woodside-operated venture is targeting an investment decision for the Western Flank project in 2008 with first gas in 2011. The likely development concept will be all-subsea with large diameter flowlines from each field linked to Goodwyn.