Chevron’s Clio and Acme gas fields could provide backfill supply for an existing LNG plant, most likely North West Shelf Venture’s Karratha facility, under a plan to be unveiled by the company’s Australian managing director Nigel Hearne this afternoon.
In a speech to the Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety’s WA Petroleum Day event this afternoon, Mr Hearne will continue to argue the case for industry collaboration to keep utilisation high across the Carnarvon Basin’s 11 existing LNG processing trains.
Although it was unconfirmed at the time of writing, it is likely Mr Hearne will propose the two fields will be part of a shared pipeline system to be built across the Carnarvon Basin.
That concept was unveiled in a speech in May.
It is likely the gas would be processed at Karratha, with that plant expected to experience an ullage, or excess capacity, by the middle of the next decade.
Notably, Woodside Petroleum also has a plan to fill the ullage at Karratha, using backfill gas from the Browse Basin development.
Woodside has been negotiating a tolling agreement with the five other partners in the North West Shelf Venture, which include Chevron.
“With close industry collaboration we can accelerate more resources more efficiently and keep our world-class built infrastructure fully utilised delivering more LNG to market and with it greater volumes of domestic gas for the state,” Mr Hearne will say.
“Keeping the infrastructure full will require ‘anchor tenants’, the big resource developments underpinned by the smaller and potentially more flexible developments.
“From Chevron’s point of view, this will enable the development of two fields - Clio and Acme, (both) 100 per cent Chevron owned.”
Chevron picked up extra equity in the two fields from Shell in 2012, in an exchange for part of holdings in the Browse Basin.
It has been reported that Clio and Acme contain about 3.5 trillion cubic feet of gas.
“The proposed development of Clio-Acme using existing LNG infrastructure would represent a compelling demonstration of a truly interconnected basin,” Mr Hearne will say.
“In real terms, its monetization could equate to around 50 LNG cargoes per annum and around 70 terajoules of domestic gas per day for WA.”
