Tokyo-based Inpex Corporation announced that it has started production of gas from its Ichthys LNG Project in Australia on 30 July, following completion of final safety verifications.
Firstly, the produced gas will be gathered within the Central Processing Facility, ‘Ichthys Explorer’, where it will be separated into gases and liquids.
Thereafter, the liquids will be piped to the nearby Floating Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) facility, ‘Ichthys Venturer’, while the gases will be transported via the 890-kilometer long Gas Export Pipeline (GEP) to the onshore gas liquefaction plant at Darwin in Australia’s Northern Territory.
At the FPSO, the condensate contained in the well fluids will be processed to remove water CPF and FPSO at Ichthys Gas-condensate Field and other impurities, then stored in tanks prior to export by tankers. At the onshore gas liquefaction plant, gases will be processed to remove impurities after which any remaining condensate will be extracted.
The gases will then be separated and liquefied to produce liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and liquefied natural gas (LNG) to be stored in tanks and shipped in sequence. The Project expects to begin the shipment of products from April to September 2018.
INPEX will continue to work toward the success of the Ichthys LNG Project with the understanding and cooperation of all its stakeholders, including the project’s joint venture partners, the local communities, the Australian federal government and the governments of Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
The Ichthys LNG Project is led by INPEX (62.2%) alongside French major Total (30%) and the Australian subsidiaries of CPC Corporation, Taiwan (2.6%), Tokyo Gas (1.6%), Osaka Gas (1.2%), Kansai Electric Power (1.2%), JERA (0.7%) and Toho Gas (0.42%).
It involves liquefying natural gas lifted from the Ichthys Gas-condensate Field offshore Western Australia at an onshore gas liquefaction plant constructed in Darwin, Northern Territory, and producing and shipping approximately 8.9 million tons of LNG and approximately 1.65 million tons of LPG per year, along with approximately 100,000 barrels of condensate per day at peak. Ichthys is a large-scale LNG project by global standards, and is expected to be operational over a period of 40 years.
