Chevron to spend $2 billion on its Australian LNG projects in 2017

The Wheatsone LNG project (IMage courtesy of Chevron)
The Wheatstone LNG project (Image courtesy of Chevron)

US-based energy giant Chevron on Wednesday revealed a $19.8 billion capital and exploratory investment program for 2017, earmarking about $2 billion toward the completion of the Gorgon and Wheatstone LNG projects in Australia.

Chevron said the investment program represents a reduction of 42 percent from 2015 outlays and is expected to be at least 15 percent lower than projected 2016 capital investments.

“This is the fourth consecutive year of spending reductions,” said Chairman and CEO John Watson.

“Construction is nearing completion on several major capital projects, which are now online or expected to come online in the next few quarters. This combination of lower spending and growth in production revenues supports our overall objective of becoming cash balanced in 2017.”

Chevron in October announced a $5 billion cost blowout for its Wheatstone LNG project near Onslow blaming late arrivals of modules.

Wheatstone project costs are now around $34 billion with first LNG expected in mid-2017.

Chevron also wasn’t lucky with its giant Gorgon LNG plant on Barrow Island in Western Australia.

Production at the $54 billion LNG project has been hit several times this year since it shipped its first cargo of the chilled fuel on March 21.

The LNG facility faced four production interruptions in March, July, in the beginning of November and the latest one that is still ongoing as Chevron shut down the Gorgon Train 1 again to “assess performance variations.”

 

LNG World News Staff