Arrow Energy has let a $70 million (Aus.) front-end engineering and design contract to construction joint venture Clough-AMEC for Arrow’s proposed Bowen coal seam gas development in central Queensland. The 1-year FEED contract includes engineering, procurement, and contracts for the project’s early works and will begin Oct. 6.
The Bowen CSG project is targeting the Queensland and Australian domestic gas market, but it is also linked to the stalled $20 billion (Aus.) Arrow LNG project that was earmarked for Curtis Island near Gladstone.
Arrow, which is 50-50 owned by Royal Dutch Shell PLC and PetroChina, put the LNG project on the back-burner earlier this year. Nevertheless the first domestic phase of the Bowen project appears to be going ahead (OGJ Online, Dec. 12, 2013).
It involves initial development of as many as four development areas that are timed to come on stream in 2017. Some 600 production wells are likely to be drilled during the first 2 years.
Arrow has said previously that the total project would aim for 6,625 production wells during its 40-year lifetime.