Santos Commits $357 Million to Cooper Basin Infrastructure Project
By Stuart Condie
SYDNEY--Santos will proceed with the Moomba Central Optimization project in South Australia state's Cooper Basin, tipping $357 million into an infrastructure overhaul that the energy producer expects will reduce production costs.
Santos on Monday said that it and joint-venture partner Beach Energy had taken the final investment decision on the project, which will address a bottleneck in upstream infrastructure and support production growth from the Cooper Basin's Central Fields.
The MCO project will replace seven aging gas-driven compressor stations with one electric-driven compressor stations, Santos said.
It said it is targeting savings of more than $600 million over the life of Central Fields by moving to more efficient, modern infrastructure.
Santos said that it had fully budgeted the capital-expenditure commitment and is targeting a reduction in unit production costs of up to $3 per barrel of oil equivalent.
"By replacing aging infrastructure with modern, electric-driven technology, we will reduce operating costs, improve reliability and lower emissions," Santos Chief Executive Kevin Gallagher said.
Write to Stuart Condie at stuart.condie@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 08, 2026 18:48 ET (22:48 GMT)
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