Also on The Australian website. Good luck to...

Also on The Australian website. Good luck to all.

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Origin Energy to seal Sinopec LNG sale

ORIGIN Energy and its Gladstone liquefied natural gas partner ConocoPhillips are set to today announce they have sealed an LNG export deal with China's Sinopec that could be worth $90 billion.

The deal, which will supercede a heads-of-agreement signed in February, clears a big hurdle on the way to approving the $35bn Australia Pacific LNG project at Gladstone.

Origin chief executive Grant King, Federal Resources Minister Martin Ferguson and ConocoPhillips production and exploration chief, Ryan Lance, have scheduled a press conference for 4:15pm this afternoon in Brisbane.

Origin has gone into a trading halt after closing yesterday at $16.23. Origin refused to comment on the purpose of the trading halt, other than to say it was about to make an announcement concerning the project.

In February, Origin said Sinopec would take a 15 per cent stake in the project and commit to buying 4.3 million tonnes of LNG a year.

Origin has said a four-train, 15 million tonnes-per-year project would cost about $35bn.

The two-train, first stage likely to be approved shortly is expected to have a development cost of about $20bn.

When approved, it will be the third huge LNG project approved in the past year planning to export Queensland?s vast onshore coal seam gas resources through plants on Gladstone?s Curtis Island.