Woodside pushes ahead on WA LNG as Canavan adds pressure

AFR article.. Relevant bits below..

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Woodside pushes ahead on WA LNG as Canavan adds pressure


Angela Macdonald-Smith
Senior Resources Writer

Updated Jul 18, 2019 — 5.50pm,
first published at 11.03am

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Senator Canavan is thought to have raised the question of Browse gas when he met with Shell's global chief executive Ben van Beurden in Perth on Wednesday, given Shell is Woodside's biggest partner in the $US20.5 billion project.

The minister has been at the forefront of government efforts to get the Browse project over the line, taking the view that there is no commercial reason for further delay. The licences over the offshore fields come up for renewal next year and the regulators are said to have signalled they may not be renewed unless concrete steps are taken to bring the gas online.

"The government would like to see the Browse project go ahead:  I can't see a reason for additional delay," Senator Canavan said on Thursday, while declining to comment on his discussions with Mr van Beurden.

"It's coming up to the 15th year of the retention lease; we'd like to see it go ahead sooner rather than later."

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Meanwhile in Senegal, where an arbitration dispute is complicating the progress of Woodside's SNE oil project, Ms Duhe said the venture was still targeting a final investment decision "as early as possible in the second half".

Chief executive Peter Coleman has previously said that the arbitration by junior partner FAR Ltd over the $US430 million deal that brought Woodside into the SNE venture was harming efforts to put project financing in place. A ruling from the arbitration tribunal on preliminary issues isn't expected until the end of the year at the earliest.

Still, Ms Duhe said that while project financing was still "our base case", each partner was working out what its plan would be for funding with or without project financing.

"We continue to believe it has no merit," she said of FAR's case.

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