Santos and Clarke Energy at Work on Wilga Park Power Plant Expansion in Australia

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Perth, Australia)--Santos Limited (Adelaide, Australia), Australia's largest domestic natural gas producer, along with selected turnkey contractor Clarke Energy (Adelaide, Australia), is developing a coal bed methane/coal seam gas (CBM/CSG) project, which is currently in the construction phase. The project is located at Narrabri in New South Wales.

The $46 million Wilga Park Coal Bed Methane project will produce 36 megawatts (MW) of electricity upon completion of the final unit installation in 2013. The expansion plant will have 12 GE Jenbacher internal combustion engines of 3 MW each, which will be installed adjacent to the existing 4-MW CSG plant.

Eastern Star Gas Limited (ESG) and its subsidiary Narrabri Power Limited initially owned Wilga Park project. Along with the power station, ESG built a gas gathering and processing system to deliver gas from Coonarah Gas Field to the Wilga Park Power Station, which is situated 15 kilometres west of Narrabri.

The expansion project was proposed by ESG in 2009. The first four of the 12 units were launched successfully during 2011, the same year in which Santos Limited acquired all the shares in Eastern Star Gas Limited, including permits and ownership of the CSG Wilga Park Power Station. A change in ownership has significantly delayed the project from final commissioning of the rest of the units. Clarke Energy has contracted with Oomiak for the design and fabrication work, including designing the skid-mounted gas and pre-chamber gas conditioning unit for the power station.

Clarke Energy and Santos are working toward the project completion, which is scheduled in January 2013.

Along with the Wilga Park permits, Santos owns ESG's permits in Gunnedah basin gas reserves in New South Wales, Australia. However, according to the agreements, Santos has agreed to a $298.11 million deal to sell 20% of the working level interest in the Gunnedah basin reserves to Energy Australia Limited (Melbourne, Australia).

The acquisition has given Santos the largest natural gas reserves position in New South Wales, with 1,216 petaJoules (PJ) of 2P reserves and 2,238 PJ of 3P reserves.

"This transaction represents the next major step in Santos," said David Knox, Chief Executive Officer for Santos. "The acquisition of ESG is a unique opportunity to consolidate our Gunnedah Basin interests and establish the leading position in Australia's next major natural gas province."

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