Rick Wilkinson
OGJ Correspondent
MELBOURNE, July 20 -- Chevron Australia has signed up Korea Gas Corp. as a foundation customer for its proposed Wheatstone LNG project off Western Australia.
A heads of agreement has been drawn up under which Kogas will buy 1.5 million tonnes/year of LNG from the development for up to 20 years.
Kogas will take 75% of this supply from Chevron’s share and the remaining 25% from other Wheatstone hub participants—at this stage Apache Energy and Kufpec Australia.
Kogas will also take as much as a 5% stake in the Wheatstone project itself. This will include the field licenses, the onshore LNG plant, and the domestic gas processing facilities.
Chevron says the deal with the South Korean energy major provides further momentum to the Wheatstone project, which involves development of Wheatstone field as well as taking gas from Apache Energy-Kupec’s nearby Julimar and Brunello gas fields.
Apache and Kufpec, which hold 65% and 35% of Julima and Brunello respectively, signed a deal with Chevron in October 2009 to supply gas to Wheatstone while taking up to 16.25% and 8.75% equity stakes in the Wheatstone facilities.
This stake will now be reduced with Kogas’s participation.
A final investment decision on Wheatstone is expected next year upon completion of current front-end engineering and design studies. The initial project will be two LNG processing trains capable of producing 8.6 million tpy and located at Ashburton North near Onslow on the Western Australian coast.
