Eric Watkins
Senior Correspondent
LOS ANGELES, Nov. 1 -- Japan Petroleum Exploration Co. (Japex) plans to drill as many as eight additional natural gas wells in its Yufutsu gas field in Tomakomai, Hokkaido, where it already has eight wells in production.
With plans to drill two wells/year for the next 3-4 years, the firm reportedly aims to meet growing gas demand arising from factories and other Japanese end-users who are converting from oil to gas for their energy.
Japex also plans to double its LNG output capacity to 350 million tonnes/day. With the new facilities, Japex could supply more regional gas companies, including those in Obihiro and Iwamizawa, beginning in fiscal 2007.
The development is part of a wider Japex strategy to increase gas or LNG to regional gas companies.
In September, Japex cohosted an oil and gas mission to Russia's Sakhalin Island to discuss a plan to build a subsurface tunnel complex linking it with the Japanese island of Hokkaido.
Aergei Karpenko, vice-chairman for the Russian regional economic commission, which includes Sakhalin, said the idea arose because the island's offshore oil and gas fields are far from existing transport infrastructure.
As a result, Karpenko said, Japanese and Russian authorities were proposing construction of one tunnel between Sakhalin and the Russian mainland and another between Sakhalin and Hokkaido.
"Such tunnels must have a motorway and a railway, as well as a pipeline for shipping oil and gas. If Japanese know-how is used, the construction will require an investment of $30 million/sq km," Karpenko said.
"Since Sakhalin has a large reserve of natural resources, while Japan experiences a shortage, the project could ideally solve many problems," a Japanese delegate was quoted as saying.
Any such development would considerably bolster the Japanese stake in the area. Japanese firms Mitsui & Co. and Mitsubishi Corp. already have stakes in gas production from the Russian island, being partners with Royal Dutch Shell PLC in the Sakhalin-2 project now under construction.
Contact Eric Watkins at [email protected].
