Woodside Petroleum denies Cossack Pioneer problems

A spokesman for Woodside Petroleum has denied that the company is aware of any problems with at the key Cossack Pioneer facility in the North West Shelf Venture (NWSV), off Northwest Australia.

The response comes after Reuters reported that BHP Billiton had declared force majeure on 650,000 barrels of oil from the field.

However, BHP Billiton refused to comment on the report, and Woodside have come out to deny shipment problems. There is no word yet from other partners in the NWSV, such as Royal Dutch Sell, Chevron, Japan Australia LNG and BP.

The Cossack Pioneer facility has been dogged by problems from cyclones over the earlier part of this year, reducing output from 100,000 barrels per day to just over 75,000.

The NWSV is Australia’s largest resource development project, and is operated by Woodside.

The NWSV currently has three offshore facilities. North Rankin A gas Platform, Goodwyn A Gas Platform and Cossack Pioneer floating production, storage and offtake (FPSO) facility.