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Exxon, BHP approve $1.4b Bass Strait project
Email Print Normal font Large font AdvertisementJuly 25, 2008 - 11:02AM

US energy giant ExxonMobil and partner BHP Billiton approved their $1.4 billion Turrum oil and gas project off Australia's southeast coast to meet rising domestic demand.

Turrum has reserves of about 1 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas and about 110 million barrels of oil and condensate, ExxonMobil's Australian chairman Mark Nolan said in a statement.

Exxon said oil production from Turrum was expected to begin in 2011, while gas sales would commence from 2015.

The Turrum project is part of the Gippsland Basin joint venture in which BHP and ExxonMobil's subsidiary, Esso Australia Resources, each have a 50% stake.

BHP said in a separate statement that it has approved an expenditure of $US625 million for its share of development for Turrum.

The Turrum project, located in the Bass Strait off the southern coast of Australia, is the second oil and gas project committed to by the Exxon-BHP partnership in the past eight months, following the decision last December to proceed with the $1.4 billion Kipper gas project.