More Brilliant News

You read the first few sentences of this upstreamonline article date 28 Sep 2014 and you might be a bit nervous but read on and your sense of relief turns to a smile.  Not one mention of Evans Shoal and even the concern of Barossa's high co2 rates a mention.  Poseidn is 7.6tcf but a 900km seabed pipeline - now that is some serious coin....

Great to see Darwin LNG being expanded but some realistic silence about ES and TS.  just a matter of time.  Next month we have Apache farm in decision re ACP50 &51 as well as ENI's strategy decision re Heron and Blackwood.  A big second quarter through to xmas with beehive farmout and UBS update in quarterly due out in the next three weeks or so.

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Boost for Darwin LNG plans

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By Russell Searancke
29 August 2014 00:00 GMT​

ConocoPhillips is building momentum and the gas resources it needs to underpin an expansion of its Darwin liquefied natural gas plant in northern Australia, writes Russell Searancke.
A brownfield expansion of Darwin has been the US company’s main goal in this region for years, underpinning its exploration investments in the Bonaparte and Browse basins.
Recent appraisal drilling successes at the Greater Poseidon and Caldita-Barossa fields have given the US operator more optimism about a Darwin expansion, said sources, especially with regards to Poseidon.
The official line from ConocoPhillips is that two development concepts are being considered for Poseidon — floating LNG and Darwin.
However, sources said it looks certain that, assuming ConocoPhillips is satisfied with the field’s reserves, the Poseidon resource will underpin the construction of a new train at Darwin.
This would necessitate the construction of offshore processing facilities, and a 900-kilometre-plus pipeline to the new train.
The first and only LNG train at Darwin has a capacity of 3.5 million tonnes per annum, and the Darwin LNG owners already have approvals by the Northern Territory and federal governments to expand their plant’s capacity to 10 million tpa.
ConocoPhillips also operates the Caldita-Barossa gas resource in the Bonaparte basin, although it has a high carbon dioxide content.
The first of three planned appraisals recently hit 92 metres of net gas pay, and the second appraisal is due for spudding in late 2014. Sources said it is far from certain how this resource will be developed.
However, a ConocoPhillips spokesperson said it was reasonable to suggest that Darwin LNG is the most likely avenue for the Poseidon and Caldita-Barossa resources.
The spokesperson also confirmed there will be spare capacity in the existing Darwin train in the mid-2020s, and that Darwin LNG could be available to other resource owners.
“We believe favourable results of other exploration and appraisal activities in Northern Australia would potentially support an expansion of the Darwin LNG facility,” said the spokesperson.
The co-owners of Darwin LNG are operator ConocoPhillips plus Eni, Santos, Inpex and the two LNG customers Tepco and Tokyo Gas.
There was a chorus of support in Darwin last week during the SEAAOC conference for an expansion of the Darwin facility.