AUSTRALIA RECIEVES GAS

The Origin Energy Ltd.-led Australia Pacific LNG (APLNG) has reached a major milestone with first gas arriving at the group's LNG plant on Curtis Island near Gladstone on the central east coast of Queensland.

The arrival of gas into the LNG facility marks the completion of commissioning of the 530-km high-pressure gas pipeline from the group's coal seam gas (CSG) fields in the Surat basin to Curtis Island.

The announcement follows BG Group's first loading and departure of LNG from its plant on Jan. 5. The BG plant, also on Curtis Island, is supplied by CSG from Surat and Bowen basin fields.

For Origin and its major partner ConocoPhillips, completion of the pipeline and arrival of gas means the APLNG group can begin commissioning of the electric power generation facilities at its LNG plant. Commissioning of the LNG plant also includes verification and testing of each system of processing Train 1 and the two LNG storage tanks.

APLNG's upstream component is about 90% complete with 1,019 development wells drilled, 666 of these commissioned. The downstream component is about 87% complete. The final Train 2 module has now been set on its foundations.

APLNG is on track to delivery of first LNG by mid-2015.

ogj.com