Nexus in $175m plan to develop Longtom - Business - Business - theage.com.au

PLANNING for a $175 million development of the Longtom gas field in Bass Strait is under way in earnest after successful appraisal drilling by the project owner, Melbourne-based Nexus Energy.
Nexus hopes to lodge development plans with the Government by the end of the year — the first formal step towards receiving a production licence.
Under a previous deal with Santos, gas from Longtom would be piped to the Patricia Baleen gas field in Bass Strait and associated processing facilities in Orbost, keeping a lid on Longtom's overall development costs.
The 12-year contract with Santos has a value of about $1.2 billion.
But as good as the results from the recently drilled Longtom 3 appraisal well were, it still needs to be confirmed in a production test over the next two weeks.
Nexus also needs to begin arranging project financing for the development — only the third outside of the Exxon/BHP dominance of production in Bass Strait.
"Subject to a successful flow test over the coming two weeks, Nexus is confident that Longtom will proceed to full field development," the company said.
The market responded by pushing the share price 5.5¢ higher to 65.5¢.
Longtom's ability to deliver the goods was a key element of Nexus' strong rejection of a scrip-only takeover bid by Anzon this year.
The bid failed but did deliver Anzon an 18 per cent shareholding in Nexus.
Nexus argued that the bid undervalued its key assets — Longtom and the Crux gas/condensate (light oil) field in Australian waters in the Timor Sea.