BHP, Exxon plan big WA FLNG
ExxonMobil and BHP Billiton are planning the world's biggest floating LNG operation, targeting annual output of as much as seven million tonnes of the liquefied fuel from the Scarborough field off WA.
It is understood the joint venture partners are working on a floating production vessel capable of processing between six and 7mtpa of LNG, almost twice the size of Royal Dutch Shell's industry-leading 3.6mtpa Prelude FLNG development.
In the Scarborough partners' favour is that they will be processing dry gas - the field does not contain condensates that need stripping out - and the low levels of contaminants, particularly carbon dioxide, mean most of the vessel can be devoted to LNG production.
The partners' preference to develop the big but remote gas field through FLNG is the latest blow to Barnett Government ambitions for a big expansion of WA's four onshore gas processing hubs.
It would also rob Woodside Petroleum of one of the most obvious partners to underpin the development of a second train at the $15 billion Pluto LNG venture.
_WestBusiness _has learned that project operator ExxonMobil may be just days away from lodging documents with Federal environmental authorities spelling out the scope of a Scarborough FLNG development. The documents would also indicate the proposed LNG production footprint and describe why a floating option is preferred to a land-based development.
Scarborough and the nearby Thebe field, which contain a combined eight to 10 trillion cubic feet of gas, lie in the Carnarvon Basin, 180km west of Woodside's Pluto discovery. The dry gas-nature of Scarborough and its remote location have kept the development of the field on the backburner. A joint development, at one of the Pilbara's existing LNG processing hubs, loomed as the most likely scenario.
Woodside chief executive Peter Coleman, who served as ExxonMobil's global project development boss before joining Woodside in 2011, spent several years considering Scarborough's development options. When he was appointed to Woodside, ExxonMobil demanded Mr Coleman be removed from negotiations between the two about a Pluto-Scarborough deal.
ExxonMobil and BHP had also talked about processing their gas at Ashburton North, near Onslow, either through a farm-in into Chevron's Wheatstone project or as a stand-alone adjacent operation.
Although the start of the environmental approvals process does not guarantee final investment decisions by the partners, it highlights the direction ExxonMobil (50 per cent) and BHP (50 per cent) are pursuing for Scarborough.
The partners would become the latest industry players to jump into FLNG, with Shell leading a floating revolution that has also enticed Petronas, GDF Suez and Santos, and Inpex in the Australasia region.
An ExxonMobil spokesman yesterday would only say that the partners had not yet decided how to develop Scarborough.
"ExxonMobil is considering a number of onshore and offshore concepts for development of Scarborough including FLNG," the spokesman said. "No decision has been made."
