Origin, ConocoPhillips choose CSM-LNG site

Aug. 18, 2009
The Australia Pacific LNG joint venture of Origin Energy Ltd., Sydney, and ConocoPhillips’s Australian arm in Perth chose Laird Point on Curtis Island near Gladstone in Queensland as the site of its proposed LNG plant.

Rick Wilkinson
OGJ Correspondent

MELBOURNE, Aug. 18 -- The Australia Pacific LNG joint venture of Origin Energy Ltd., Sydney, and ConocoPhillips’s Australian arm in Perth chose Laird Point on Curtis Island near Gladstone in Queensland as the site of its proposed LNG plant. The plant will be fed by coalseam methane from the Surat and Bowen basins.

The 50-50 JV secured the 230-hectare site from the Queensland government. The LNG project is scheduled to sell its first shipment to international markets in 2014.

The companies say the project will create 10,300 jobs during the construction period with 18,600 direct and indirect jobs created nationally during the peak years from 2012-15.

The JV intends to lodge its environmental impact statement for the project early next year with a final investment decision timed for the end of 2010.

Overall plans are to develop the JV’s vast CSM reserves base into a 14-16 million tonne/year LNG plant at the Curtis Island site.