Chevron stops production at Gorgon Train 1

US-based energy giant Chevron has shut down the first liquefaction train at its multi-billion Gorgon LNG plant on Barrow Island in Western Australia.

“Production on Gorgon Train 1 was stopped on May 12th due to a failure of a flow measurement device,” Chevron’s spokesman told LNG World News in an emailed statement on Monday.

“Train 1 is expected to be down approximately one month for this replacement and we will take this opportunity to perform other routine maintenance,” he said.

He added that Trains 2 and 3 were running normally and the terminal is continuing to ship LNG cargoes.

Chevron has in March started-up the third and the last Train at the Gorgon facility that has a total capacity of 15.6 million mt/year.

The troubled $54 billion LNG project has experienced several production interruptions since it shipped its first cargo in March last year.

“The Gorgon project is currently loading a ship about every 2 days and has shipped 67 cargoes to date with 38 cargoes shipped since the beginning of the year,” Chevron Asia Pacific Exploration and Production president Stephen Green said during the company’s first-quarter conference call on April 28.

According to Green, all three Trains were running over 85% of nameplate capacity at that time, processing gas from both the Jansz and Gorgon fields.

“Looking ahead, we’ll complete commissioning and start-up of additional equipment, which boosts efficiency of the trains such as the turbo expanders and the end flash gas compressors, systems that can be started now that all 3 trains are operational,” Green said during the call.

Once all systems are in operation, Chevron plans to begin the optimization and tuning of each train, the first step in further increasing the plant’s capacity.

“After this, we’ll analyze plant performance and look for debottlenecking opportunities that will increase capacity and capture incremental value going forward,” Green said.

The Gorgon LNG project is operated by Chevron that owns a 47.3 percent stake, while other shareholders are ExxonMobil (25 percent), Shell (25 percent), Osaka Gas (1.25 percent), Tokyo Gas (1 percent) and Chubu Electric Power (0.417 percent).

LNG World News Staff