The highly-prospective Browse gas fields off the north-west of the state will be developed using floating liquefied natural gas technology, the project’s proponents have confirmed today.
Woodside Petroleum has announced that its joint venture participants, Shell, Mitsui, Mitsubishi, PetroChina and BP, had agreed that its recommendation to use FLNG was the most feasible way of developing the gas fields.
The Perth-based oil and gas giant recommended the use of FLNG technology to its partners last month, despite having cleared environmental hurdles to construct a processing facility at James Price Point north of Broome.
The joint venture participants said today they had agreed to start design work immediately.
Woodside will complete the design phase, with support from Shell, which is the developer of the FLNG technology.
The joint venture participants are aiming to have design works completed by next year, to begin front-end engineering works by next year.
At close of trade today, Woodside shares were up nearly 1 per cent, at $38.54.