Rick Wilkinson
OGJ correspondent
MELBOURNE, Jan. 14 -- Partners in the North West Shelf Gas Project, led by Woodside Petroleum Ltd., have presented a proposal to the Western Australian government to expand the group's LNG facilities on the Burrup Peninsula.
The $2 billion (Aus.) proposal includes construction of a fifth processing train along with support fractionation, compressor, and electric power generation plants. There also will be a second LNG berth built in Withnell Bay.
The proposal calls for the new facilities to have a production capacity of 4.2 million tonnes/year of LNG—a mirror of the fourth LNG train on the Burrup, which came on stream in September 2004.
The current timetable is for Train 5 to begin production at the end of 2008. It will increase total production to 15.9 million tonnes/year of LNG.
Environmental approval has been secured, but the state government will now determine whether the project meets all the requirements of the North West Gas Development (Woodside) Agreement Act 1979 before the final official sanction.
The participants will make their final investment decision on whether to proceed with the expansion during the first half of this year. That decision is subject to continued success in the group's LNG marketing efforts.
