Woodside: Still in Pluto Expansion Talks (Australia)

Australia’s Woodside said today that Pluto LNG Foundation Project construction is in its final phase with commissioning and production start up of sections of the offshore and onshore production systems progressing to plan.

Offshore, the Pluto A platform was declared ready for start up in November and the subsea well commissioning campaign was completed during December.

Subsequently gas from the Pluto reservoir flowed into the Pluto trunkline and is being held at the beach valve, ready to enter the plant.

Onshore, the jetty, storage and loading facilities are operational and, subsequent to the end of the quarter, unloading of the commissioning cargo commenced.

This commissioning cargo is being used to cool down the LNG tanks and the LNG transfer lines in preparation for LNG processing.

In preparation for the LNG train start up, testing and independent running of major process equipment is largely complete. No material change is anticipated to the previously announced first cargo target date.

There is also no change to the previously announced 2012 Pluto production guidance of 17 to 21 MMboe (Woodside share).

Pluto Expansion

During the quarter, the Cadwallon-1 (WA-434-P) and Genseric-1 (WA-434-P) exploration wells were drilled and the Ragnar-1 (WA-430-P) well was spudded.

A further three exploration wells are yet to be drilled in this current campaign.

Vucko-1 (WA-433-P) will be drilled during the first quarter and this will likely be followed by a well in permit WA-389-P and a well in WA-269-P.

It is not planned to proceed with the development of Xeres (WA-34-L) at this time, therefore Xeres-1 and Xeres-1A have been expensed in the fourth quarter.

Woodside said that discussions continue with other resource owners regarding development of additional trains at Pluto.

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LNG World News Staff, January 19, 2012; Image: Woodside