THE North West shelf, Australia’s largest oil and gas project, is likely to undergo a $5 billion expansion following the announcement this week 10 years ago that key Japanese customers were prepared to make higher buying orders. Situated off the coast of Western Australia, the shelf project, with export revenue of $1.5 billion, would almost double its production capacity to 14.3 million tonnes a year. Equally owned by Woodside Petroleum, Shell, BHP, Chevron Asiatic, BP, and Japan Australia LNG, the project supplies eight Japanese gas and power utilities with almost 7.5 million tonnes of LNG. A Woodside Petroleum spokesman said all eight of the shelf’s major Japanese LNG buyers were set to deliver a “letter of indication” to the project partners to continue negotiating towards larger buyer commitments. Two new liquefied gas trains would be added on the Burrup Peninsula and analysts predict the expansion should increase the project’s profitability by almost 30 per cent.