Glomar III - Global Marine Co. drill-ship (1962 - c. 1970)

Summary

Glomar III, built in 1962, was a 268 foot, 5,800 ton floating drilling rig. It reached Australia on 16 December 1964 after a 71-day voyage from the Gulf of Mexico. The longest voyage ever undertaken by any drilling rig at the time.

"In late 1964 the Global Marine drill-ship "Glomar III" spudded [made the initial drilling for] Esso's Gippsland Shelf No. 1 (later re-named Barra-conta-1); the discovery well of the Barracouta gas field. Fourteen other mobile offshore rigs have drilled wells in Australian waters, including one jack-up, four semi-submersibles and two drill-barges. Five production platforms have been built and now supply Australia with a large proportion of her oil requirements." {See: https://doi.org/10.1071/AJ74017]

Details

"On 27 December 1964 the floating rig Glomar III began exploration drilling in what became the Barracouta field. It was one of the first specialised self-propelled floating rigs and was a sister ship to Cuss I which had been used in the research Project 'Mohole' in the Pacific in 1961. Its novelty lay in its 'moonpool' which is a hole or well which extends through the ship from deck to keel, with the drilling tower above. The drill is lowered through the moonpool into the sea and stays relatively still, while the ship pitches and rolls around it with the waves. Its 70 day voyage from Houston to Port Welshpool under its own power was the longest ever undertaken by such a vessel.

After two months drilling a small blowout announced that it had struck gas. [Tony Krins, an eye witness, says this was a major blowout] This was rapidly controlled and drilling continued. By mid April tests confirmed that the field was capable of commercial production and by the end of June it was clear that ESSO/BHP had discovered a large natural gas field with their first well.

While this was enormously encouraging to the partners, the real prize was oil and in March 1966 in only the fourth well the first oil was found. This was in the Marlin field, which proved to be a major gas field. Early in 1968, after the discovery of the Halibut and Kingfish oil fields, it became clear that Australia had major oil fields with reserves of 1500 million barrels and that production from the Bass Strait fields could be 300,000 barrels per day. Of the first ten structures drilled by ESSO/BHP only one was dry, and it is now believed that the dry hole was not drilled on a valid structure. This represents a remarkable success rate by industry standards." ["Technology in Australia" 2000, page 772]

Related entries

Archival resources

Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation Library

• Bass Strait oil and gas records assembled by Dr Tony Krins, 1964 - 1987, BSAR03890; Krins, Anthony (Tony); Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation Library. Details

Published resources

Books

• Anon, Bass Strait: long history, bright future. (Melbourne: Esso Australia Resources Pty Ltd, 2009), 6 pp, https://www.eoas.info/bib-pdf/ASBS17334.pdf. Details
• Thomson, Peter; Macklin, Robert, The Big Fella: The rise of BHP Biliton (North Sydney, New South Wales: William Heinemann, 2009), 518 pp, https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/31715216. page 103. Details

Films

• Cox, Cyril [director, photographer]; Stacey, Bill [editing]; McConnachie, David [sound recording], Wild cats and white horses: Newsreel on the beginning of Australia's oil industry from 1966, YouTube, Produced by Cinesound, Esso Standard Oil (Australia) Limited, Australia, 1967. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-DXKpyLjt8. Details

Journal Articles

• White, J.A.W., 'Australian offshore drilling: past, present and future', The APPEA Journal, 15 (1) (1975), 141-146, https://doi.org/10.1071/AJ74017. Details

Newspaper Articles

• Anon, 'The obstetrician at the birth of an industry', Connection - ExxonMobil, 136 (2020), 4-5. Details
• Esso Australia, 'In Action! - Esso Exploration's first offshore well is spudded-in in Gippsland Basin', Esso News, 3 (7) (1965), 1-2. Details

Resources

• Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, 'Chapter 11, Section V Oil and Natural Gas, pages 770-772', Technology in Australia 1788-1988, Online edn, Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, Melbourne, 3 May 2000, https://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/tia/770.html. Details