Woodside, along with joint venture partners Tokyo Gas and Kansai Electric, is developing the Pluto LNG Project to develop the Pluto and Xena gas fields in the Carnarvon Basin offshore northwestern Australia.

According to Woodside, the Pluto gas field contains a total dry gas recoverable reserve volume of 4.4 trillion cubic feet (Tcf). By comparison, Xena's total dry gas recoverable reserve is approximately 600 million cubic feet. The gas fields, which were discovered in 2005, are 190 km northwest of Karratha, Western Australia, in the offshore permit WA-350-P under license WA-34-L. The production platform will sit in a water depth of 85 meters.

The JV will connect the platform to five subsea big bore wells on the Pluto field in 830 meters of water. A 36-inch-diameter pipeline will ship gas from the platform 180 km to shore, terminating at the new Burrup LNG Park. The park will feature a single LNG processing train with an anticipated capacity of 4.3 million tonnes per year. In addition, the facility will house two LNG storage tanks (each 240,000 cubic meter capacity) and three condensate storage tanks (each 130,000 cubic meter capacity).

The park also will feature an export jetty for loading LNG and condensate onto vessels. Designed to aggregate gas from the Carnarvon Basin, Burrup is being built to support future LNG growth and create another domestic gas supply hub for Western Australia, according to Woodside.

Woodside owns a 90% stake in the project and is its operator. Kansai and Tokyo Gas each acquired a 5% interest in the project in January 2008. Kansai and Tokyo Gas will receive a combined supply of up to 3.75 million tonnes of LNG under their 15-year sales agreements with Woodside.

Contractors, along with their roles in the project, are as follows: Poyry Plc (flow assurance and process engineering services; development of operating philosophies and manuals; support commissioning and start-up activities); Technip-Chiyoda-Fluor joint venture (prepare basis of design for proposed second processing train); Cape Plc (erection and provision of access services); Aker Solutions (Mono Ethylene Glycol [MEG] reclamation system); Grenland Group (fabricate, assemble, and test subsea structures); Royal BAM Group NV (Interbeton BV) (LNG jetty berth); Eos (KBR-WorleyParsons JV) (EPCM for offshore production platform; EPCM for onshore portion of project); CB&I (EPC and pre-commissioning of two LNG storage tanks, three condensate tanks, and associated civil, piping, electrical, and instrumentation work); ShawCor Ltd. (Bredero Shaw(Singapore) Pte Ltd) (provide anti-corrosion, flow assurance, concrete weight, and internal flow efficiency pipeline coatings); Royal Boskalis Westminster Group NV (prepare soil and dig canals).

Site preparation for Burrup LNG Park and construction of the storage tanks began in 2007. The project operator, in a Second Quarter 2008 report on the project, stated that the LNG processing train is being built in prefabricated units in Thailand and will be shipped to the project site for installation. The offshore production system and platform are being assembled in Malaysia and China. Feasibility studies will determine whether a second processing train will be built.

Pluto LNG is expected to begin production in late 2010.