Massive expansion for Australia?s North-West Shelf gas project: report
Updated at 4.18pm: Partners in Australia?s massive North-West Shelf gas project have approved a $A2 billion (HK$11 billion) expansion to exploit soaring demand from China and Japan, The Australian Financial Review reported on Thursday.
The newspaper said official confirmation of the expansion was expected within days and was timed to allow the project partners, led by Woodside Petroleum, to retain the bulk of the workforce from an earlier A$2.9 billion investment boost.
The North-West Shelf is already Australia?s biggest natural resource operation and the latest expansion is aimed at responding to looming energy shortages and increasing demand for liquified natural gas (LNG) in Japan and China.
The plan involves building a fifth gas processing unit that will lift the North-West Shelf?s LNG capacity by 25 per cent to 16 million tonnes a year, the newspaper said.
The ?train five? expansion will take 38 months to complete, with the two billion dollar cost being borne equally by the six founding project partners: Woodside, Shell, BP PLC, BHP Billiton, ChevronTexaco and MIMI ? a partnership between Japan?s Mitsui and Mitsubishi corporations, it said.
The China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC), which acquired a 10 percent stake in the project last year, is expected to pay its pro-rata share of the capital costs of the project.
