More than $20 billion in capital expenditure will be required to construct the offshore and onshore facilities required to produce gas and condensate offshore, and deliver gas from the Ichthys Field to the Blaydin Point liquefied natural gas (LNG) processing facility via an 850km pipeline.
The reserve volume of the Ichthys Field is estimated to be 12.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 527 million barrels of condensate. Initially the project is expected to produce more than eight million tonnes of LNG, 1.6 million tonnes of liquefied petroleum gas per annum and 100,000 barrels of condensate per day.
Naoki Kuroda, president of Inpex Holdings, said: Environmental, economic and engineering studies have demonstrated the viability of locating an LNG plant at Blaydin Point and have lent weight to this decision. Now that a location has been selected, front-end engineering design will follow shortly and a final investment decision is expected near the end of 2009 or early in 2010.
