Woodside, the Australian energy giant, has successfully initiated production from the Shenzi North project in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, surpassing the targeted first oil date of 2024. Shenzi North is a two-well subsea tieback project that utilizes the existing Shenzi infrastructure to enhance production capacity. The final investment decision for the project was made in 2021 when BHP (now part of Woodside following a merger in 2022) approved $544 million in capital expenditure for the Shenzi North oil project.

Shenzi North represents the initial development phase of Greater Wildling, following successful exploration in 2017, with further refinement of resource and development plans through Ocean Bottom Node seismic data and analysis. Woodside, as the operator, completed drilling the second development well for the Shenzi North project in the Gulf of Mexico and initiated well completion operations. By the end of 2022, the project was 42% complete. By the end of the second quarter of 2023, the project reached 82% completion. Woodside holds a 72% interest in the Shenzi conventional oil and gas field, while Repsol holds the remaining 28% interest.

Meg O’Neill, Woodside CEO, emphasized the value of the firm's U.S. Gulf of Mexico assets and commended the project team for bringing the resource into production well ahead of schedule.

The Shenzi field is situated approximately 195 km off the coast of Louisiana in the Green Canyon protraction area. It was discovered in 2002, with oil and natural gas production commencing in 2009. The Shenzi platform has a production capacity of 100,000 bbl/d of oil and 50 mmscf/d of natural gas. Both crude oil and natural gas are transported to connecting pipelines for sale to Gulf Coast customers.

This achievement comes shortly after Woodside received approval for a field development plan (FDP) for a deepwater oil project in the Perdido basin in the Gulf of Mexico, located 30 km south of the Mexico-U.S. maritime border.