Abstract The 125 to 160 m.y. old, sediment-starved passive margin off northwest Australia is ideally suited for a study of early rift, breakup, juvenile and mature ocean paleoenvironmental and geodynamic evolution. Triassic to Tertiary rocks, dredged and cored at 50 stations along the flanks of the Wallaby, Exmouth and Scott Plateaus, allow the dating of seismic sequences and correlation with coeval formations drilled in Northwest Shelf petroleum exploration wells.

Abstract The Renee Field lies in Block 15/27 toward the eastern end of the Renee Ridge, a major intra-basinal high in the Outer Moray Firth separating the Witch Ground Graben and South Halibut Graben. The block was awarded to a Phillips Petroleum-led consortium in the fourth Round of UKCS Licensing in March 1972. The 15/27-1 discovery well was drilled in 1976, testing oil at rates of 8025 bopd from stacked Piper/Upper Scott sandstone reservoirs. The field was appraised in mid-1997 and an Annex B submitted to the Department of Trade and Industry in late 1997 for a joint Renee and Rubie Field development. Oil export was via a 21 km pipeline to the Ivanhoe/Rob Roy fields, north of Renee. The development comprised a three-well drilling programme, completed in August 1999. First production was achieved in February 1999 at rates of up to 20 000 bopd, the plateau period continuing until year end. Production continued to decline until the field was permanently shut-in during September 2006. Ultimate recovery was 8.9 MMbbl and recovery factor 49%, based on a final mapped stock tank oil-in-place of 18.2 MMbbl. Decommissioning of the Renee Field commenced in 2015 with the removal of the subsea infrastructure.