Australia’s Woodside Petroleum has begun producing LNG from its Pluto LNG Project near Karratha in Western Australia, the company announced today.
Woodside will soon be loading its first cargo aboard the Woodside Donaldson LNG tanker for shipment.
The project processes gas from the Pluto gas field, located in the Carnarvon Basin about 190 kilometres north-west of Karratha.
The initial phase of the project comprises an offshore platform in 85 metres of water, connected to five subsea wells on the Pluto gas field. Gas is piped through a 180 kilometre trunkline to the onshore facilities, which include an LNG processing train with a forecast production capacity of 4.3 million tonnes a year.
Pluto is expected to contribute 17 million to 21 million barrels of oil equivalent to Woodside’s 2012 production. In steady-state production, Pluto is forecast to add a long-term average of about 37 million barrels of oil equivalent to Woodside’s annual volumes.
The project’s joint venture participants are Woodside Burrup, holding 90 per cent and operating; Tokyo Gas Pluto, with five per cent; and Kansai Electric Power Australia, holding five per cent.
Commenting, Woodside’s CEO Peter Coleman said: “Pluto cements Woodside’s position as a major supplier of LNG to the Asia-Pacific region and builds on our position as a global leader in upstream oil and gas. Execution of the Pluto LNG Project, from discovery of the gas field in 2005 to first LNG in 2012, demonstrates Woodside’s significant offshore and onshore capabilities.”
He continued: “Today is the culmination of millions of hours of work by our own people and the hundreds of businesses that worked on the construction phase of this project. We appreciate the support the development has received from governments, the communities in the Pilbara region in which we operate, and our customers and fellow project participants Tokyo Gas and Kansai Electric.”
Pluto generated more than 15,000 Australian jobs during the life of construction.
