Analysis
Santos’s August 24 Meridian announcement describes a producing coal seam gas project with 280 producing wells and project output of 47 terajoules per day. It supplies no produced-water volumes, pump heads or electricity consumption for those wells. The news therefore provides context, not inputs for a site valuation. A separate hypothetical water circuit illustrates how an analyst can distinguish lifting electricity from volume-dependent handling charges without assigning an average water burden to each gas well.
Assume water density of 1,000 kilograms per cubic metre, gravitational acceleration of 9.81 metres per second squared, an elevation lift of 100 metres and combined wire-to-water efficiency of 65%. This efficiency covers electrical input through useful hydraulic work, so a second motor-efficiency deduction is not applied. Assume electricity costs US$0.12 per kilowatt-hour and a separate handling charge of US$2 per cubic metre that excludes this lift electricity. Every parameter is illustrative, not a published Meridian measurement or local tariff.
For daily volume V, lift electricity is E = ρ × g × H × V ÷ (η × 3,600,000), expressed in kilowatt-hours per day. At 1,000 cubic metres per day, this yields 419.23 kWh/day, US$50.31/day of electricity and US$2,000/day of handling, or US$2,050.31/day combined. Holding the other assumptions fixed, 500 and 1,500 cubic metres per day produce combined costs of US$1,025.15 and US$3,075.46/day. The chart shows these three cases, not historical observations or a probability distribution.
In the middle case, lift electricity accounts for about 2.5% of the modeled combined bill. Improving efficiency from 65% to 75% at the same head and volume would reduce electricity to 363.33 kWh/day, saving approximately US$6.71/day before equipment costs. That comparison demonstrates the selected assumptions’ arithmetic, not the merit of any actual equipment purchase. Lower water volume would also reduce the handling component in this example, but a real reservoir may require water removal; arbitrarily restricting pumping could affect gas recovery.
The 100 metres represents elevation head only, not well depth or measured drawdown. Pipe friction, backpressure, treatment energy, water chemistry, transport, storage, maintenance and capital charges are outside the calculation. Actual appraisal would require synchronized water-flow, pressure and electrical measurements, pump curves, applicable handling contracts and operating constraints. Volume and density could change through time. These daily water-circuit costs are neither a hydrocarbon netback nor per-well profit; no reservoir forecast, trained model or actual project-return claim follows from the example.