Progress Report on the Curtis Island Coal Seam Gas-to-LNG Projects

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources Australia (Perth, Australia)--The big three LNG projects are seeing progress in various phases of construction on Curtis Island, off the coast of Gladstone in Queensland, Australia. The projects are best known by their abbreviated names: QCLNG, GLNG and APLNG.

These three world-scale LNG production projects will source natural gas from Queensland's coal seam gas (also known as coal bed methane) fields in the Surat and Bowen basins. Coal seam gas exploration and production on a scale this large is relatively new, and Australia is a forerunner in converting the coal seam gas to large-scale LNG production projects. In a matter of years, all three of these projects will be exporting LNG to Japan, Korea, China, Singapore and Malaysia.

The Queensland Curtis LNG (QCLNG) project, operated by BG Group (LSE:BG) (London, England) under its Australian subsidiary, Queensland Gas Company (Brisbane, Australia), began construction in late 2010 and has maintained a steady leading position. The first LNG to market is scheduled for early 2014. At the LNG plant site, a large majority of the modules that will make up Train One have been transported from the fabrication yard in Thailand to Curtis Island. The first of two LNG storage tanks is nearly complete, and the jetty construction is progressing. The main equipment continues to arrive on site with the delivery of the Train Two methane compressor, cold boxes and air compressors due to reach the site by the end of this month.

The coal seam gas fields are a hive of activity. Well development is progressing, site preparation is finished at a number of field compression stations and central processing plant sites, and the installations of more than 1,000 kilometres of gathering pipeline is complete.

The Gladstone LNG (GLNG) project, operated by Santos (ASX:STO) (Adelaide, Australia), is striding into its main construction phase and will see foundation phase construction reach completion at the beginning of 2015. Santos expects to begin LNG shipments by mid-2015. Modules for the construction of the two LNG trains are to begin arriving at Curtis Island soon. Foundation works are progressing at thee LNG plant site, and the Jetty is in an early construction phase with the trestle piles being put into place. Structural, electrical and mechanical work has begun on the three hub stations in the gas fields.

The Australia Pacific LNG (APLNG), operated by ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) (Houston, Texas) and Origin Energy (ASX:ORG) (Sydney, Australia) (upstream project operator), is well under way with construction completion anticipated for mid-2015 and the first LNG exports in the third quarter of 2015. Fabrication of the LNG plant modules began offsite in September of last year. The 530-kilometre main export pipeline is in the progress of being laid underground, and completion is anticipated by mid-2014. The gas field work is progressing, with most projects now into site preparation.

At peak construction, about 6,000 construction workers are required on each of these three CSG-to-LNG projects for the entirety of the projects, including field work, pipelines, gas gathering and processing, the LNG production plant, and the Curtis Island site facilities and infrastructure.

For more information, see December 6, 2012, article - Queensland Coal Seam Gas to LNG Projects: Which Will be First to Export?; February 8, 2013, article - Queensland Curtis Liquefied Natural Gas Project Reaches Another Milestone; and November 30, 2010, article - Queensland Provides LNG Production and Export Opportunities.

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