Chevron loading first Wheatstone LNG cargo

Chevron’s Wheatstone liquefied natural gas (LNG) export project in Western Australia is expected to soon ship its first ever cargo of the chilled fuel.

Chevron announced the commencement of production at Wheatstone on October 9, adding that the first cargo was scheduled for shipment in the coming weeks.

The project’s first train is “currently ramping up at 65% of capacity,” according to Chevron’s chief executive John Watson.

“Loading arms are connected, and we’re in the process of loading the first cargo. We expect production to ramp up to full rates over the quarter,” Watson told analysts during the company’s third-quarter call on Friday.

According to the marine data provider, VesselsValue, Chevron’s 160,000-cbm Asia Venture tanker was still docked at the Wheatstone LNG facility on Monday afternoon. The tanker arrived at the plant earlier this month.

At full capacity, the LNG project’s two-train facility will supply 8.9 million mt/year of LNG for export to customers in Asia. First LNG from the second train is scheduled for the second quarter next year.

The multi-billion Wheatstone LNG project is Chevron’s second large LNG project fed from natural gas fields offshore the state of Western Australia.

The project is located 12 km west of Onslow, and processes natural gas from the Chevron-operated Wheatstone and Lago fields.

Worth mentioning, the construction on the Wheatstone project did not go smoothly as the LNG project experienced delays in module deliveries. These delays had resulted in an increase of Wheatstone project costs to $34 billion as compared to $29 billion in the original 2011 estimate.

Wheatstone LNG is a joint venture between Australian units of Chevron (64.14 percent), Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company (13.4 percent), Woodside (13 percent), and Kyushu Electric Power Company (1.46 percent), together with PE Wheatstone, part-owned by JERA (8 percent).

LNG World News Staff