This could explain some of the moment... speculation that it is chevron to farm in perhaps?
Chevron keen to expand Wheatstone LNG: Kirkland
Marija Zivkovic Monday, 3 August 2009
CHEVRON could be on the lookout for partners to expand its planned Wheatstone liquefied natural gas project off Western Australia, according to global upstream and gas executive vice president George Kirkland.
In a conference call on Friday, Kirkland said the company had enough gas to underpin two 4.3 million tonne per annum trains at Wheatstone but would like to expand the project by adding more trains.
“We would like to have a much bigger footprint, more trains,” he said. “We’ve had other exploration opportunities in Australia, so we would like to be able to bank a bigger footprint, ie, more trains.”
“So we are very interested in moving forward with others to open up a bigger opportunity set for the Wheatstone Project of the Wheatstone LNG.
“So we would like to get bigger, because the money to be made in LNG is all in getting more and more trains, and more and more gas through it.”
On Friday, Chevron awarded Bechtel a front-end engineering and design contract for the first phase of development of Wheatstone.
Chevron will supply the facility at Ashburton North, near Onslow, with gas from its wholly owned Wheatstone field and the adjacent Iago field operated by the company.
The Wheatstone field in WA-253-P and WA-17-R was discovered in 2004 and is 200 kilometres north of Onslow.
The adjacent Iago field was discovered in 2000 and spans two retention permits: WA-17-R, owned by Chevron, and WA-16-R, in which Shell Development has a one-third share.
Final investment decision for Wheatstone is expected in 2011.
Meanwhile, the company has reported a net profit of $US1.75 billion ($A2.1 billion) for the second quarter, a 71% drop from $US5.98 billion in the 2008 second quarter.
Revenue for the period also dropped, falling 52% to $40 billion due to lower oil prices.
MEO Price at posting:
55.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Not Held
