Helium drilling set to start after WA taxpayers shielded from cleanup costs
UK-listed Georgina Energy plans to drill in the remote Little Great Sandy Desert in search of helium, hydrogen and natural gas.
Australia is the one of the world's biggest producer of liquefied natural gas. The North West Shelf, Pluto, Gorgon, Wheatstone, Prelude and Ichthys LNG projects source their gas from the waters off WA.
Gas will likely be the “last man standing for hydrocarbons”, but there are questions over its long term future as a “transition fuel.”
WA is the only state in Australia with rising emissions on the back of new LNG projects that will make meeting Paris Agreement emissions reductions very dificult.
Shell’s Prelude floating LNG vessel and Inpex’s Ichthys LNG plant in Darwin have moved closer to production with the cooling of their plants with LNG.
Inpex’s Ichthys LNG project will cost $53 billion, $8 billion more than planned, and may not see substantial production until early next year in a blow to the Japanese operator that is waiting on the Darwin plant to more than double its cashflow.
Woodside’s Sunrise LNG project remains stalled as East Timor dismisses incentives to send the gas to Darwin.
Andrew Forrest is considering joining the world’s biggest LNG buyer to ship gas to NSW to alleviate the east coast gas shortage caused by soaring LNG exports from Queensland.
The Gorgon and Wheatstone LNG projects are now enjoying cash margins of more than $US30 a barrel at a $US50 price and production from the $111 billion mega-projects is expected to increase.
The cost of Inpex's Ichthys LNG project may increase to $US40 billion, according to French oil major Total.
Some of the biggest oil and gas companies in the world are playing an expensive game of brinkmanship in the North West of WA.
Buck-passing between oil giants over who pays for the upkeep of the ageing North West Shelf LNG plant has emerged as the biggest hurdle to Woodside sending its Browse gas to the facility.
In 2017 Australia’s made-in-Korea offshore LNG boom saw three giants towed 5600km south, but 2018 is crunch time: making it all work.
Chevron's $2.5B effort to cut bury emissions from its Gorgon LNG project has been thwarted by equipment failures.
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