Conoco plans $8bn expansion Business The Australian

WORLD energy giant ConocoPhillips is considering a $US6-10 billion ($8-13.5 billion) expansion of its newly completed Wickham Point LNG plant in Darwin, which would more than double its capacity as early as 2012.
Laura Sugg, president of ConocoPhillips in Australasia, told the South East Asia Offshore Oil Conference in Darwin the expansion could be in the range of 5-7 million tonnes a year with gas supplies coming from Greater Sunrise or the new Caldita discovery, both in the Timor Sea.
ConocoPhillips accepted delivery of the Wickham Point plant, Australia's second LNG export facility after the North West Shelf, from construction contractors Bechtel earlier this month, and is ramping up production to a target level of 3.3 million tonnes a year to satisfy 17-year supply contracts with Tokyo Electric and Tokyo Gas.
Ms Sugg said this translated into one LNG cargo a week. She noted that the Wickham Point plant site had approval for annual production of 10 million tonnes of LNG, which suggested expansion plans could either be covered by cloning the existing plant - which has a nominal capacity of 3.7 million tonnes a year - or by looking to ConocoPhillips' international experience to develop an uprated production train of 5-7 million tonnes a year capacity.
Wickham Point takes its gas from the small Bayu Undan field in which Santos is the only Australian participant, with 10.6 per cent.
Ms Sugg flagged that gas supply for expansion could come from the Greater Sunrise reservoirs, which are estimated to contain about 7 trillion cubic feet of gas, or the new Caldita discovery, for which reserves have yet to be released.
ConocoPhillips is a 30 per cent partner in Greater Sunrise and a 60 per cent stakeholder in Caldita, where the Australian interest is held by Santos with 40 per cent. Ms Sugg said she remained confident the Treaty on Certain Maritime Arrangements signed in January would be ratified shortly, while conceding recent unrest in East Timor meant ratification could be delayed until after elections in East Timor scheduled for April next year.
"We remain hopeful and confident this project will come forward expeditiously," she said.
Ms Sugg declined to give details of the Caldita discovery or its gas composition, saying only that Wickham Point expansion would need at least 3-4 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves to justify investment in expansion.
There are two gas supply expansion options: Greater Sunrise, which has well established reserves but labours under a political and diplomatic cloud; and Caldita, where commercial reserves have yet to be established.
Ms Sugg said an appraisal well would be drilled at Caldita, beginning next month, which is several months ahead of previously announced schedules.