Rick Wilkinson
MELBOURNE, Oct. 29 -- In what is seen as a bid to wedge open the US LNG market for Australian suppliers, Perth-based Woodside Petroleum Ltd's US subsidiary Woodside (USA) Inc. has signed a heads of agreement with Crystal Energy LLC, Houston, to develop the proposed Clearwater LNG import terminal 12.6 miles off Ventura County, Calif. (OGJ Online, Feb. 16, 2004).
Under the HOA, Woodside would provide technical expertise and funding to move approvals through US regulatory agencies and would operate Clearwater Port in exchange for preferential access rights to the terminal.
Crystal already has applied to the US Coast Guard for a deepwater port license to convert the Grace oil and gas platform to the offshore port for LNG regasification. The terminal is being designed to accept a base capacity of 6 million tonnes/year of LNG—about 800 MMscfd of gas that would be transferred from tankers, regasified, and flowed directly into pipelines to onshore infrastructure.
If the plan goes ahead, Australian LNG suppliers will be a step closer to having a gateway into one of the world's fastest growing LNG markets.
Parent company Woodside Energy Ltd. has operated the $10 billion North West Shelf joint venture off Western Australia for 15 years and has delivered more than 1,600 LNG cargoes from Burrup Peninsula facilities to markets in Asia, the US, and Europe.
Crystal's principal shareholders, who have pledged the financial backing necessary to convert Platform Grace, are Small Ventures USA LLC 54%, owned by William O. Perkins III, and Ritchie Energy Long-Term Trading LLC 22%, a unit of Ritchie Energy Trading Ltd.
