Woodside Energy Limited (Woodside), as Operator of the Browse to North West Shelf (NWS) Project plans to undertake a series of geophysical and geotechnical (GPGT) surveys. The Petroleum Activity will consist of a number of individual exploration survey campaigns to acquire appraisal data to inform the assessment and planning of potential future development opportunities. The purpose of these surveys is to gather this data, rather than the recovery of petroleum. The survey will acquire data to characterise seabed and subsurface geological conditions and support a range of engineering, environmental and heritage assessment activities, including optimisation of the pipeline route, identification of suitable MODU anchoring locations, and the development of FEED design and cost estimates for subsea infrastructure. The surveys provide information to support decision making on potential future infrastructure siting, design and development planning and may also provide data on existing infrastructure.

The Operational Area is located within petroleum titles WA-28-R, WA-29-R, WA-30-R, WA-31-R, and WA-32-R in water depths of between 350m and 900m. The Operational Area is located approximately 400 km north-west of Broome.

Several types of survey vessels will be required to complete the activities. A multi-purpose project vessel will be used to conduct the geophysical surveys, ROV operations and light geotechnical operations. Geotechnical drilling will be performed from a supply vessel using a seafloor drilling unit. Uncrewed surface vessels are controlled from a remote operations centre and are likely to replace conventional vessels for numerous survey tasks over the life of the EP.
Geophysical and geotechnical surveys within the Operational Area may use the following survey equipment:
• multibeam echosounder (MBES), single beam echo sounder, altimeter
• side scan sonar (SSS) including variants such as multi-aperture and synthetic aperture sonar
• magnetometer / gradiometer and pipe tracker
• sub-bottom profiler (SBP), such as but not limited to boomer, sparker, and CHIRP SBP
• water sampler
• sound velocity sensor / multi-parameter conductivity-temperature-depth profiler
• subsea positioning systems (ultra-short baseline (USBL), Ultra Short Baseline (USBL) Doppler Velocity Log (DVL) Inertial Navigation System (INS)
• underwater camera
• underwater laser scanner
• shallow cores and probes: box corer / grab sampler / piston core / gravity core / vibrocore
• boreholes: sampling / coring and in situ testing such as Cone Penetration Test (CPT)

The Petroleum Activity is anticipated to commence from ~ Q3 2027 and may be completed over several multi-week campaigns split over the 5-year period of this EP. Survey activities within the Operational Area are estimated to take up to a maximum of 90 days per year. The vessels involved will be operating 24 hours a day. Timing and duration may be subject to change due to survey vessel availability, unforeseen circumstances and weather.