Rick Wilkinson
OGJ Correspondent
MELBOURNE, Aug. 16 -- Western Australia has chosen natural gas rather than coal for the state's next baseload electric power station.
Wambo Power Ventures will build the $400 million (Aus.), combined-cycle gas-fired 320-Mw facility at Kwinana, just south of Perth.
The station will be underwritten by a 25-year electricity supply contract with state-owned utility Western Power. Wambo has negotiated supply agreements with the owners of the Dampier-Bunbury trunkline, which transports gas from offshore fields on the North West Shelf.
A coal-fired station was estimated to cost as much as $150 million (Aus.) more to build than a gas-fired facility. Wambo also will be able to complete its construction and bring the new facility on line a year earlier than the two coal-fired candidates.
Wambo also said that the gas-fired station will generate less than half the greenhouse emissions of a comparable coal-fired power station.
