North West Shelf LNG - Woodside Energy.
by Steven Randall
This is the first in a series of articles that will cover each of the major LNG projects documented and displayed on the new Asia West Pacific LNG Terminals Map released at the Australian Oil and Gas Conference on February 24th.
Woodside (Lakes Entrance) Oil Co NL, was formed in 1954 and starting oil exploration off the Victorian coast. After 10 years without success in southern Australia, Woodside was awarded exploration rights in June 1963 over more than 300,000 sq km off north-western Australia in what is known as the North West Shelf.
Exploration drilling began in 1967 and between 1968 and 1974, major gas and condensate discoveries were made at Scott Reef north of Broome; North Rankin and Angel north of Dampier; Goodwyn gas and condensate fields; Lambert oil field; and the Sunrise and Troubador gas fields off East Timor.
These discoveries, along with further deposits found in the 1980's would lay the foundations for one of the great LNG regions in the world to develop, starting with the North West Shelf LNG project in 1980.
This project, along with the companies involved and the contracted off take partners, is displayed on the Asia West Pacific LNG Terminals map at this weblink....
Asia West Pacific LNG Terminals
Shell is a foundation participant in the North West Shelf venture, along with five other joint venture participants:- BHP Billiton Petroleum, BP Developments Australia, Chevron Australia, MIMI and Woodside (operator).
Built on the Burrup peninsula just north of Karratha, the Karratha Gas Plant facilities include five LNG processing trains, two domestic gas trains, six condensate stabilisation units, three LPG fractionation units as well as storage and loading facilities for LNG, LPG and condensate. The facility is located 1260 kilometres north of Perth, Western Australia and covers about 200 hectares.
In 2008, LNG production capacity at the Karratha Gas Plant increased to 16.3 million tonnes a year with the start up of a fifth LNG processing train.
The NWS Project's offshore production facilities include the North Rankin Complex, Goodwyn A and Angel platforms, and the Okha floating production storage and offloading vessel (FPSO).
The North West Shelf Shipping Services operate the fleet of specialized LNG carriers transporting the LNG, LPG and oil condensates to contract markets in Japan....
.. and send spot cargoes as far afield as China, Spain, the united States and South Korea. The project earns hundreds of millions of dollars a year towards Australia's economy.
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