Chevron brings Gorgon Train 3 on stream

A joint venture led by Chevron Australia has begun production of LNG from Train 3 at its Gorgon-Jansz project on Barrow Island in Western Australia.

The 5.2 million-tonne/year train will enable the $54-billion Gorgon facilities to ramp up to full production capacity of 15.6 million tpy.

The start-up comes just after the project shipped its 50^th LNG cargo from the island earlier this month.

While describing the start of the third train as a milestone event, Nibel Hearn, Chevron Australia managing director, also recently noted that there is unlikely to be any near-term investments in a fourth train at the site.

The costly project has been plagued by problems during its long construction period. Train 1 came on stream 12 months ago, but shipped just one cargo before production was stopped for lengthy remedial work. Train 2 came on stream in October last year and quickly ramped up to 90% of nameplate capacity before it, too, suffered a short suspension of production in February. It was shut down again in early March for planned maintenance work, which the company says will enable modification works to improve the train’s capacity and reliability.

Chevron added that the commissioning of Train 3 went smoothly and the company has applied the experience gained from the start-up of the first two trains to put the project on track to reach its full planned capacity.

The Gorgon-Jansz consortium is Chevron 50%, and ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell PLC, 25% each.

Chevron’s other big project in Western Australia, the $34-billion Wheatstone LNG development, is on schedule to begin production at midyear.