An LNG Plant For Chevron's Wheatstone Field ?  

The Australian reports that Chevron are looking at building a new LNG plant in the Pilbara - an onshore one to process gas from the Wheatstone field, which would complement their other planned development offshore for the Gorgon field - Chevron wants to build LNG plant on Pilbara coast. I've talked about the Wheatstone field before a couple of times (particularly in Gas to liquids on the north west shelf and Australian Natural Gas - How Much Do We Have And How Long Will It Last ?) and the general feeling seems to be that it isn't big enough to justify an LNG plant on its own, so its possible that this is just a way of bargaining with Woodside (who would prefer the gas be used to feed into the Pluto 2 development).

IN what could become the nation's biggest development, US oil major Chevron is looking at building a giant 25 million-tonnes-a-year liquefied natural gas export hub on the Pilbara coast from which it plans to start producing from 2015.

The project, for which three sites are being considered, would start by producing 10 million tonnes of LNG a year through two trains. It would be underpinned by gas from the company's Wheatstone field in the Carnarvon Basin, Chevron said in documents submitted to the federal Environment Department. And in a move bound to rile rival Woodside Petroleum, Chevron is seeking approval to boost the plant to a five-train operation, if it can source enough third party gas and shore up gas from its own fields outside the Greater Gorgon area.

While the later phases are a long way down the track, if they came to fruition the hub would be larger than the current North West Shelf LNG project and the Chevron-operated Gorgon, which is currently Australia's biggest planned resources development. Chevron would not give a cost estimate for Wheatstone, but it would be expected to be in the same realm as Gorgon, which analysts say could cost $30 billion.

The plans for more trains flag competition for Woodside, which is building its $12 billion Pluto LNG project on the Burrup Peninsula and is trying to secure gas to approve a second train there. Wheatstone had been seen as a prime contender to supply the second train until earlier this year when Chevron said it would pursue development of its own LNG plant. ...

As well as an LNG plant, Chevron is planning a domestic gas plant that would produce 250 million cubic feet of gas a day, which represents 15 per cent of LNG sales from the first train, and would increase in with LNG sales line after that.

Chevron has said that the 4.5 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves at Wheatstone would underpin one LNG train, but in July said drilling at the nearby Iago field had led it to consider a three-train operation.

Iago spans two retention permits, one owned by Chevron, and another owned one-third by Shell and two-thirds by Chevron. Chevron did not mention Iago in the documents but this is likely to be the source of gas for the second train.

Chevron said the Wheatstone Development was expected to run for about 30 years and that it planned to select a final site in the second quarter of next year.