Chevron Corporation today announced that its Australian subsidiaries have signed binding Sales and Purchase Agreements (SPAs) with Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) for the delivery of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the Chevron-operated Wheatstone natural gas project in Australia.
Under the agreements, Chevron, together with Apache Energy and Kufpec, will deliver up to 3.1 million tons per annum (MTPA) of LNG to TEPCO for a period of up to 20 years.
TEPCO is also in discussions with Chevron to purchase an equity share in the titles covering the Wheatstone fields and a percentage of Chevron’s share of the Wheatstone downstream processing facilities.
John Gass, president, Chevron Gas and Midstream, welcomed TEPCO as a foundation customer and potential investor in the Wheatstone Project.
“TEPCO is one of the world’s leading LNG customers. Its support for Chevron’s Wheatstone Project reinforces the strength of the relationship between the two companies that has been built up over many years.”
Roy Krzywosinski, managing director, Chevron Australia, said the Wheatstone Project had completed the front-end engineering and design phase and Chevron remains on track to make a final investment decision (FID) in 2011.
“The TEPCO agreements and other LNG agreements we are finalizing give Wheatstone great momentum. The Ashburton North site earmarked for the LNG processing plant is ideally located to unlock the significant gas resources in the western Carnarvon basin.”
The Chevron-operated Wheatstone Project will become one of Australia’s largest resource projects. Located at Ashburton North, 12 kilometres west of Onslow in Western Australia, the foundation phase of the project will consist of two liquefied natural gas trains with a combined capacity of 8.9 MTPA and a domestic gas plant.
