New deal boosts APLNG project

A revised deal on the Australia Pacific LNG (APLNG) project in the Surat and Bowen basins further secures Queensland –  and with it, the Western Downs Region – as a leading export hub for LNG in the Asia-Pacific region.

Chinese oil producer Sinopec has amended its original deal with APLNG and will now buy 7.6 mega tonnes per annum (Mtpa) of LNG each year through to 2035, up from an originally proposed 4.3 Mtpa.

Sinopec said it would also increase its share holding in APLNG from 15% to 25%.

The project stands to create thousands of jobs in regional Queensland and deliver significant opportunities for many of the local communities in which it operates.

A joint venture between Origin Energy and ConocoPhillips, APLNG is a $35 billion coal seam gas (CSG) to liquefied natural gas (LNG) development project with a projected life of at least 30 years.

The project, which received Federal and Queensland Government approval last year, has Australia’s largest CSG reserves and is well placed to enable the creation of a world-class, long-term industry in Queensland.

The APLNG project is expected to create up to 6000 construction jobs, including 2,700 in the gas fields and pipeline, and 3,300 at the LNG facility at its peak, with a further 1000 ongoing operational jobs.

On target to become operational in 2014, the project consists of:

• Further development of Australia Pacific LNG's existing coal seam gas fields in the Surat and Bowen basins.
• Construction of a gas transmission pipeline approximately 450 kilometres long from the coal seam gas fields to an LNG plant at Gladstone.
• An LNG facility on Curtis Island in Gladstone, the first two trains of which will have a processing capacity of up to 9 million tonnes per annum.

From the LNG facility, APLNG’s cargoes will be shipped to the energy markets of Asia. The first cargo is expected to be exported in 2015.

APLNG has also announced that national construction company, Hutchinson Builders, had been awarded a $51.7 million contract to supply and install 700 modular accommodation units and support buildings at the Condabri and Reedy Creek gas fields near Miles and Wallumbilla.

The 700 units will be built in Hutchinson Builders’ Toowoomba modular production facility before being trucked to site. It will include mess halls, administration buildings, kitchens, laundry and other facilities to accommodate the needs of the personnel expected to reside there during the construction phase of the project.

Hutchinson Builders will deliver the complete building package for the project including civil site works, reverse osmosis water treatment plants, a sewerage treatment plant and generator sets for power, and will install the modular accommodation on-site.

Construction on the modular accommodation began in December 2011, with the first delivery of rooms due to site in late February, to be commissioned by early March.