By Angela Macdonald-Smith
May 30 (Bloomberg) — ConocoPhillips, the second-biggest U.S. refiner, will today ship the first extra cargo from its Northern Australian liquefied natural gas venture in addition to its contracted deliveries.
The cargo, which is due to leave Darwin about 6 p.m. in the 135,000 cubic meter `LNG Pioneer’ tanker, will be delivered to the existing customers of the plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co. and Tokyo Gas Co., Dirk Faveere, operations manager at the facility, said. One cargo is shipped about every six to seven days, he said.
“At the moment all our gas is contracted to those buyers if they can take it,” George Manning, Darwin area manager at ConocoPhillips, told reporters during a visit by Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation energy ministers to the plant. He said output at the plant was two cargoes ahead of schedule this year.
ConocoPhillips, based in Houston, started production at the 3.3 million tons-a-year Darwin plant in the first quarter last year and is seeking more gas off northern Australia to supply a potential expansion. The site at Darwin has approvals for as much as 10 million tons a year of LNG production capacity.
“ConocoPhillips is looking for further opportunities to expand the operation of this plant,” Australian Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane said. “As soon as they possibly can they will” expand the project, he said.
The Darwin LNG venture includes Eni SpA, Santos Ltd., Inpex Holdings Inc. and the two Japanese LNG customers.
Second Unit
A second LNG production unit at the site may have capacity of between 3.5 million and 6 million tons a year and may start up in 2012-2013, Adelaide-based Santos, Australia’s third-biggest oil and gas producer, said last month.
Australian LNG export earnings are estimated by the government’s commodities forecaster to jump to A$8.5 billion ($7 billion) in the year ending June 30, 2012, from an estimated A$5.4 billion this financial year, as new projects start up. Australia has more than A$50 billion of proposed LNG projects, led by companies including Woodside Petroleum Ltd., Chevron Corp. and Inpex.
Australia is aiming to become the world’s second- or third- biggest LNG producer, after Qatar, and possibly Nigeria, Macfarlane said today. Delays to the development of Australian LNG projects are “a concern” and are mostly due to the shortage of manpower and delays in environmental approvals, particularly in the case of Chevron’s proposed $10 billion-plus Gorgon project in Western Australia, he said.
Sunrise Project
Woodside’s proposed Sunrise LNG project, off northern Australia, “will go ahead” once the partners reach an agreement on where the gas will be processed, Macfarlane said. The Sunrise partners, which include ConocoPhillips, Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Osaka Gas Co., have agreed to a request from the East Timor government that an independent review is carried out to assess the ability of the gas to be processed in East Timor rather than Australia, he said.
The Sunrise gas field straddles a boundary between Australian waters and an area jointly administered by East Timor and Australia. Development options include an expansion of the Darwin plant, Woodside says on its Web site.
The delay to Sunrise due to an earlier lack of agreement between East Timor and Australia on the administration of the project means the venture has “lost its place” in the queue of proposed LNG projects in Australia, which includes Woodside’s Pluto and Browse projects and Gorgon, Macfarlane said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Angela Macdonald-Smith through the Sydney newsroom at
Last Updated: May 30, 2007 02:41 EDT
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Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
