Japan's Tokyo Electric Power Company is in discussions with Chevron to buy into the Wheatstone liquefied natural gas project, after entering binding gas sales agreements with the international energy giant.
Under the contracts, Chevron and its joint venture partners for Wheatstone, Apache Energy and Kufpec, will deliver up to 3.1 million tonnes of LNG each year for 20 years to TEPCO, which is one of Japan's major energy utilities.
TEPCO also said it was in discussions with Chevron to purchase equity in the titles covering the Wheatstone gas fields and a percentage of Chevron’s share in the project’s downstream processing facilities.
Chevron Australia managing director Roy Krzywosinski said Wheatstone had completed the front-end engineering and design phase and Chevron remained on track to make a final investment decision this year.
“The TEPCO agreements and other LNG agreements we are finalising give Wheatstone great momentum,” he said.
“The Ashburton North site earmarked for the LNG processing plant is ideally located to unlock the significant gas resources in the western Carnarvon basin.”
Among other power assets, TEPCO owns and operates the stricken Fukushima nuclear reactor damaged in the devastating earthquake and tsunami earlier this year.
