Bonaparte FLNG partners ponder other development options

June 19, 2014
The joint venture of GDF Suez and Santos Ltd. in the Bonaparte Gulf has decided to consider other potential development options as well as the floating LNG (FLNG) concept for the development of its Bonaparte natural gas fields.

The joint venture of GDF Suez and Santos Ltd. in the Bonaparte Gulf has decided to consider other potential development options as well as the floating LNG (FLNG) concept for the development of its Bonaparte natural gas fields.

In April the GDF Suez-operated project missed another of its deadlines set earlier in the development planning (OGJ Online, Apr. 24, 2014).

The Petrel, Tern, and Frigate fields lie 250 km west of Darwin and one of the alternate options will be a pipeline connection to Darwin.

The partnership says that while the fields have material value and have been fully appraised, the future development using FLNG does not currently meet the companies’ commercial requirements despite being technically robust.

As a result the proposed Bonaparte FLNG development will not be taken into front-end engineering and design stage at the moment.

GDF Suez has 60% and is operator. Santos with 40% received a $200 million cash consideration when the Bonaparte JV was formed and has since received a full carry from GDF Suez on the study and development costs encountered so far.