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Santos considers expanding gas fields
Rebecca Le May
August 20, 2009 - 4:04PM
Santos Ltd could expand its floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) joint venture with French energy firm GDF SUEZ in the Timor Sea, chief executive David Knox says.

Mr Knox said on Thursday that Santos was mulling commercialisation options for its Evans Shoal, Barossa and Caldita gas fields in the Bonaparte Basin offshore Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

These fields could be developed in the same way that the Santos/GDF SUEZ joint venture is planning for the Petrel, Tern and Frigate gas fields in the same basin.

Santos announced on Wednesday week it had sold a 60 per cent interest in the Petrel, Tern and Frigate fields to GDF SUEZ for $US200 million ($A240.8 million) under plans to jointly develop a two million tonnes per annum floating LNG project.

GDF SUEZ will carry certain costs for Santos until a final decision is made to develop the project, when the French company will make an additional payment of $US170 million ($A204.7 million).

Evans Shoal, Barossa and Caldita could be even more suited to floating LNG processing because they are situated further from shore than Petrel, Tern and Frigate, and have been considered `stranded' assets until the recent emergence of floating LNG vessels and technology.

Alternatively, the Evans Shoal, Barossa and Caldita fields could be used for a planned expansion of ConocoPhillips' Darwin LNG facility, which was commissioned in 2006, Mr Knox said.

"We have demonstrated our ability to monetise what would have historically be considered to be stranded assets through the Petrel, Tern, Frigate transaction with GDF SUEZ, by bringing in new technology," he told AAP.

"So obviously we'll be trying to do the same thing with Evans Shoal, Caldita and Barossa - seeing if we can monetise that in some way.

"There are a number of options, of which Darwin is one, but there are other options as well.

"We could do exactly the same thing as we've done on Petrel, Tern and Frigate fields."

Mr Knox said GDF SUEZ's floating LNG technology was "very similar" to that being considered by Dutch energy giant Shell for its nearby Prelude gas discovery.

He said floating LNG was "a big step forward" in gas asset commercialisation, with potential to unlock the value of trillions of cubic feet of gas in Australia's remote offshore regions.

It was suited to fields containing between one and three trillion cubic feet of gas, he said.

"We at Santos have been involved obviously in leading the coal seam gas era and here we are now involved in the next wave."

Santos last month raised its interest in New South Wales-based coal seam gas (CSG) firm Eastern Star Gas Ltd to 19.9 per cent and also acquired interests in some of its CSG permits for $300 million.

Mr Knox again ruled out a play for Eastern Star Gas.

"We don't have any acquisitive intentions for Eastern Star Gas," he said.

He also said Santos was in talks with Asian parties regarding gas sales from the second train of its Gladstone LNG joint venture in Queensland with Malaysia's Petronas.

http://news.brisbanetimes.com.au/breaking-news-business/santos-considers-expanding-gas-fields-20090820-errv.html