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The North West Shelf Venture, situated in the north-west of Western Australia, is Australia's largest resource development project. It involves the extraction of petroleum (mostly natural gas and condensate) at offshore production platforms, onshore processing and export of liquefied natural gas, and production of natural gas for industrial, commercial and domestic use within the state.
With investments totalling $25 billion since the early 1980s, the project is the largest resource development in Australian history. [1] In the late 1980s, it was the largest engineering project in the world. [2] The Venture is underpinned by huge hydrocarbon reserves within the Carnarvon Basin, with only about one-third of the Venture's estimated total reserves of 33 trillion cubic feet (930 km3) of gas produced to date.
It is owned by a joint venture of six partners – BHP, BP, Chevron, Shell, Woodside Petroleum and a 50:50 joint venture between Mitsubishi and Mitsui & Co – with each holding an equal one-sixth shareholding. [3] Along with being a joint venture partner, Woodside is the project operator on behalf of the other participants.
The venture currently has three currently active offshore facilities. A fourth, North Rankin B is under construction:
The condensate is transported to the Burrup Peninsula (Murujuga) onshore facility on the mainland 130 km away by two 42-inch (1.1 m) and 40-inch (1.0 m) undersea pipes.
Other assets include:
In March 2008, the partners approved a A$5 billion North Rankin 2 project which will underpin supply commitments to customers in Asia beyond 2013. [5] The project will recover remaining low pressure gas from the ageing North Rankin and Perseus gas fields using compression. It will include the installation of a new platform (North Rankin B) which will stand in about 125 metres of water and will be connected by a 100-metre bridge to the existing North Rankin A platform. [7]
The first LNG shipments went to Japan in 1989. Two hundred shipments per year (about one shipment every 1.5 days) in the purpose built LNG carriers totalling more than seven million tons are made around the world. Markets include sales to long term customers in Japan and spot buyers in China, Spain, South Korea and the United States. [8]
To date, the venture has produced more than 1000 cargoes of light crude oil (natural gas condensate). Condensate is sold on the international energy market.
In 2002, a contract was signed to supply 3 million tonnes of LNG a year [9] from the North West Shelf Venture to China. The contract was worth $25 billion: between $700 million and $1 billion a year for 25 years. [10] [9] The price was guaranteed not to increase until 2031, and, as international LNG prices were increasing, by 2015 China was paying one-third as were Australian consumers. [9]
The venture is Western Australia's largest single producer of domestic gas providing about 65% of total State production. [1] Pipeline gas is processed at the consortium's Karratha facility, and transported to customers in southern Western Australia via the 1530 km Dampier to Bunbury Natural Gas Pipeline. A subsidiary company, North West Shelf Gas Pty Ltd markets the domestic gas component to customers in Western Australia through private contracts and sales to Alinta. [11]
The first two phases of the project received an Engineering Heritage International Marker from Engineers Australia as part of its Engineering Heritage Recognition Program. [12]
The Timor Sea is a relatively shallow sea in the Indian Ocean bounded to the north by the island of Timor with Timor-Leste to the north, Indonesia to the northwest, Arafura Sea to the east, and to the south by Australia. The Sunda Trench marks the deepest point of the Timor Sea with a depth of more than 3300 metres, separating the continents of Oceania in the southeast and Asia to the northwest and north. The Timor sea is prone to earthquakes and tsunamis north of the Sunda Trench, due to its location on the Ring of Fire as well as volcanic activity and can experience major cyclones, due to the proximity from the Equator.
A floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) unit is a floating vessel used by the offshore oil and gas industry for the production and processing of hydrocarbons, and for the storage of oil. An FPSO vessel is designed to receive hydrocarbons produced by itself or from nearby platforms or subsea template, process them, and store oil until it can be offloaded onto a tanker or, less frequently, transported through a pipeline. FPSOs are preferred in frontier offshore regions as they are easy to install, and do not require a local pipeline infrastructure to export oil. FPSOs can be a conversion of an oil tanker or can be a vessel built specially for the application. A vessel used only to store oil is referred to as a floating storage and offloading (FSO) vessel.
Woodside Energy Group Ltd is an Australian petroleum exploration and production company. Woodside is the operator of oil and gas production in Australia and also Australia's largest independent dedicated oil and gas company. It is a public company listed on the Australian Securities Exchange and has its headquarters in Perth, Western Australia. In the 2020 Forbes Global 2000, Woodside was ranked as the 1328th-largest public company in the world.
Karratha is a city in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, adjoining the port of Dampier. It was established in 1968 to accommodate the processing and exportation workforce of the Hamersley Iron mining company and, in the 1980s, the petroleum and liquefied natural gas operations of the North West Shelf Venture. As of the 2021 census, Karratha had an urban population of 17,013. The city's name comes from the cattle station of the same name, which derives from a word in a local Aboriginal language meaning "good country" or "soft earth". The city is the seat of government of the City of Karratha, a local government area covering the surrounding region.
The Sakhalin-2 project is an oil and gas development in Sakhalin Island, Russia. It includes development of the Piltun-Astokhskoye oil field and the Lunskoye natural gas field offshore Sakhalin Island in the Okhotsk Sea, and associated infrastructure onshore. The project is managed and operated by Sakhalin Energy Investment Company Ltd..
Asaluyeh is a city in the Central District of Asaluyeh County, Bushehr province, Iran, and serves as capital of the county. Alternate spellings include: Assalouyeh, Asalouyeh, Asaloyeh, Asalooyeh, Asaluye, Assaluyeh, and Asalu. UNCTAD codes: IR YEH, IR PGU, and IR ASA.
Shell Australia is the Australian subsidiary of Shell. Shell has operated in Australia since 1901, initially delivering bulk fuel into Australia, then establishing storage and distribution terminals, oil refineries, and a network of service stations. It extended its Australian activities to oil exploration, petrochemicals and coal mining, and became a leading partner in Australia's largest resource development project, the North West Shelf Venture.
Murujuga, formerly known as Dampier Island and today usually known as the Burrup Peninsula, is an area in the Dampier Archipelago, in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, containing the town of Dampier. The Dampier Rock Art Precinct, which covers the entire archipelago, is the subject of ongoing political debate due to historical and proposed industrial development. Over 40% of Murujuga lies within Murujuga National Park, which contains within it the world's largest collection of ancient 40,000 year old rock art (petroglyphs).
{{Infobox oil field | name = South Pars/North Dome Field | image = | caption = | location_map = Iran | location_map_width = | location_map_text = | coordinates = 26°37′08.85″N52°04′04.67″E | coordinates_ref = | country = Iran
Qatar | region = | location = [[Persian Gulf | block = | offonshore = Offshore | operators = NIGC
QatarEnergy
SPGC
TotalEnergies | partners = | contractors = | discovery = 1971 | start_development = | start_production = 1989 | peak_year = | abandonment = | peak_of_production_gas_mmcuft/d = 60000 | peak_of_production_gas_bcm/y = | oil_production_bbl/d = | oil_production_tpy = | production_year_oil = | production_gas_mmcuft/d = | production_gas_mmscm/d = | production_gas_bcm/y = | production_year_gas = | est_oil_bbl = | est_oil_t = | recover_oil_bbl = | recover_oil_t = | est_gas_bft = 1800000 | est_gas_bcm = | recover_gas_bft = 1260000 | recover_gas_bcm = | formations = Kangan (Triassic)
Upper Dalan (Permian) }} The South Pars/North Dome field is a natural-gas condensate field located in the Persian Gulf. It is by far the world's largest natural gas field, with ownership of the field shared between Iran and Qatar. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the field holds an estimated 1,800 trillion cubic feet of in-situ natural gas and some 50 billion barrels of natural gas condensates. On the list of natural gas fields it has almost as much recoverable reserves as all the other fields combined. It has significant geostrategic influence.
The Dampier to Bunbury Natural Gas Pipeline (DBNGP) is the longest natural gas pipeline in Australia. It is 660mm in diameter, which also makes it one of Australia's largest in terms of transmission capacity. At the time of its commissioning in 1984, it was one of the longest gas pipelines in the world.
QatarEnergy, formerly Qatar Petroleum (QP), is a state owned petroleum company of Qatar. The company operates all oil and gas activities in Qatar, including exploration, production, refining, transport, and storage. The President & CEO is Saad Sherida al-Kaabi, Minister of State for Energy Affairs. The company's operations are directly linked with state planning agencies, regulatory authorities, and policy making bodies. Together, revenues from oil and natural gas amount to 60% of the country's GDP. As of 2018 it was the third largest oil company in the world by oil and gas reserves. In 2022, the company had total revenues of US$52bn, a net income of US42.4bn, and total assets of US$162bn. In 2021, QatarEnergy was the fifth largest gas company in the world.
The North West Shelf is a continental shelf region of Western Australia. It includes an extensive oil and gas region off the North West Australia coast in the Pilbara region.
West Australian Petroleum Pty Ltd (WAPET) was a pioneer oil and gas exploration and processing company in Western Australia.
Wheatstone LNG is a liquefied natural gas plant operating in the Ashburton North Strategic Industrial Area, which is located 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) west of Onslow, Western Australia. The project is operated by Chevron.
The petroleum industry in Western Australia is the largest contributor to the country's petroleum exports. Western Australia's North West Shelf (NWS) is the primary location from which production originates. Oil exports are shipped from Port Hedland.
Yamal project, also referred to as Yamal megaproject, is a long-term plan to exploit and bring to the markets the vast natural gas reserves in the Yamal Peninsula, Russia. Administratively, the project is located in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug.
The natural gas in Qatar covers a large portion of the world supply of natural gas. According to the Oil & Gas Journal, as of January 1, 2011, reserves of natural gas in Qatar were measured at approximately 896 trillion cubic feet ; this measurement means that the state contains 14% of all known natural-gas reserves, as the world's third-largest reserves, behind Russia and Iran. The majority of Qatar's natural gas is located in the massive offshore North Field, which spans an area roughly equivalent to Qatar itself. A part of the world's largest non-associated, natural-gas field, the North Field, is a geological extension of Iran's South Pars / North Dome Gas-Condensate field, which holds an additional 450 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural-gas reserves.
The Ichthys gas field is a natural gas field located in the Timor Sea, off the northwestern coast of Australia. The field is located 220 km (140 mi) offshore Western Australia and 820 km (510 mi) southwest of Darwin, with an average water depth of approximately 250 m (820 ft). It was discovered in 2000 and developed by Inpex in partnership with Total, Tokyo Gas, Osaka Gas, Chubu Electric Power, Toho Gas, Kansai Electric Power and CPC.
The Scarborough gas field is a natural gas field located in the Indian Ocean north-west of Exmouth on the coast of Western Australia. The total Contingent Resource of the Scarborough gas field is around 7.3 trillion cubic feet. In 2018 Woodside bought ExxonMobil's 50% share of the retention lease, adding to the 25% it had acquired from BHP in 2016. Woodside now owns 75% of the retention lease and are operator of the joint venture, with BHP retaining the final 25%. On 7 April 2022, the company announced that final Australian federal and state government approvals for the project had been received.