Woodside Petroleum has deferred a final decision on expansion of its Pluto gas project, but the company's chief executive Don Voelte has still talked up its development record, saying it was five years ahead of industry rival Chevron.
Woodside Petroleum has deferred a final decision on expansion of its Pluto gas project, but the company's chief executive Don Voelte has still talked up its development record, saying it was five years ahead of industry rival Chevron.
In his address to shareholders today Mr Voelte contrasted Woodside's successful Pluto phase-1 development with Chevron's slow progress on its Wheatstone liquefied natural gas (LNG) project.
"In 1994 a licence was awarded in the Carnarvon Basin," he said.
"In 2002 Chevron relinquished part of this concession which was subsequently licensed by Woodside as we believed we saw something on seismic.
"Then in 2004 Chevron drilled the Wheatstone discovery. Six months later in 2005, Woodside also drilled a discovery called Pluto in the previously relinquished concession. Both were nice discoveries."
"Today, Woodside's greenfield train 1 Pluto project is 92 per cent complete with LNG production to commence in 2011."
"Chevron is now contemplating a Wheatstone FID in 2011, sometime after Pluto starts producing LNG."
"For Woodside, five years head start is a lot of value for shareholders."
"For some, there seems to be a competition of sorts between these two projects. Fair to say the competition is nearing a finish, with a clear winner by five years for the shareholders of Woodside with all else being equal," he said.
Mr Voelte did not mention Chevron's half-owned Gorgon LNG project, which is under construction.
Meanwhile, Woodside has made two gas discoveries since Friday that will go towards a second liquefied natural gas processing "train" at the Pluto project.
But it still needs to either find or buy more gas before it can make a decision to proceed with the expansion.
Woodside has spoken previously with US companies Apache Energy and Hess Exploration about buying gas - but has so far not reached an agreement.
"We're continuing discussions with various parties to send large volumes of gas to Pluto for processing," Mr Voelte said.
"The Pluto site can accommodate a further four LNG trains in addition to our foundation train.
"So this has opened up options for us the option to conserve both equity gas development and ORO (other resource owners) gas supply.
"In fact, our ORO options ... are at a point of deliberations where we've actually reserved two LNG train footprints for the remainder of the discussions that we're having that hopefully will reach a conclusion by the end of this year."
Mr Voelte said the company had put back its target date for a final investment decision to proceed with the second Pluto train from late 2010 to 2011 so that it could conclude the discussions.
Mr Voelte said the Sunrise Commission, a joint East Timor-Australia regulatory body set up to oversee the stalled Woodside-led Sunrise LNG project in the Timor Sea, would met after the Australian federal election.
He said he expected "a lot of movement over the next month or two" on the Browse LNG project in WA, which has been held up by disputes between indigenous groups.
