Hi

Has anyone any experience of working in Moomba for any of the oil companies? My husband may have a job offer and it would be great to have a job lined up for when we move, but he doesn't know anyone who has worked there and would like some personal experience of the site, conditions etc if possible.

Thanks in advance.
Judy

"North of Adelaide" is one way of putting it.

Not far off being as closer to Brisbane as Adelaide I think.

Beautiful part of the word, but wouldn't want to be out that way working for long in summer Get close to 50c days out that way, and the dust and the roads are pretty bad.

It would have to be VERY good pay to get me out there.

Moomba is an oil and gas processing facility in the SA desert about 800km north of Adelaide - and a lot further from Brisbane! It is operated by Santos on behalf of the Cooper Basin Producers. The gas and liquid products are shipped out via several pipelines - gas to Sydney and Adelaide, liquids to Port Bonython near Whyalla in SA.

Employment at Moomba is either directly with Santos or with one of the service companies working for Santos in the plant or on the surrounding oil and gas fields. Employment there with Santos is on a FIFO roster basis - used to be 2 weeks on 2 weeks off. Service companies will have different rosters.

Accommodation at Moomba is good with high quality catering, gym facilities, bar, etc. Nearest 'town' is Innamincka, which consists of a hotel, a general store, and a few smaller businesses including a mechanic.

Surrounding area is sand dunes and gibber plains. Moomba is situated between the Cooper and Strzlecki Creeks, and when these both flood (fairly rare event) it is cut off from all access except air. All access is controlled by Santos - if they don't like you, you won't get in!

It's changed a bit since I was first there in 1984 - back in those days the liquids recovery plant was still being finished off and there were three large camps for all the construction workers, one of which even had an outdoor cinema. I was up there supervising a concrete pour in January and it got too hot to work concrete past noon, so we packed up, got the cooler full of beer, and watched the Ashes test on the only available satellite TV channel! The other thing I remember was the flies - they would form a black mass on the sweat patch on the back of your shirt and you had to make sure you knocked them off before entering the mess hall!

Is the job offer with Santos?

Thanks very much for the info. Glad to hear the accommodation and catering is good, think hubby was worried he'd be in a tent in the middle of the desert! Would be great to get a 2/2 rota but I think it will just depend on the workload at the time. We're also investigating the feasibility of living in Melbourne (where we lived before), but obviously he would have to do the FIFO from Adelaide. At the moment it's just a relief to have a possible job offer before we go.

Thanks again.

No, it's one of the service companies