Gorgon gets the cash flowing
Jamie Freed
August 13, 2008
CHEVRON, ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell have agreed to pump more than $1 billion into the Gorgon liquefied natural gas project over the next 12 months in hopes of making a final investment decision on the long-delayed development.
The Gorgon project, which would process gas on Barrow Island off Western Australia, is based on the largest resource of any LNG project in Australia – an estimated 40 trillion cubic feet in the Gorgon and Jansz fields.
It entered front-end engineering and design four years ago but was re-scoped last year to include three production trains rather than the two planned, to ensure the project was economic amid rising construction costs in WA.
Chevron Australia’s general manager of the greater Gorgon area, Colin Beckett, said yesterday the joint venture expected to receive the necessary government approvals for the three-train project over the next 12 months.
Mr Beckett would not estimate the capital costs of Gorgon, telling the Herald any numbers would be “speculative” until the partners did the final studies next year.
But earlier this year BHP Billiton’s head of petroleum, Mike Yeager, said the rival Browse joint venture would cost “north of $US25 billion,” and many analysts estimate Gorgon could cost more than Browse.
In a speech to suppliers expected to tender for Gorgon contracts yesterday, Mr Beckett said the partners intended to approve a domestic gas project capable of producing 300 terajoules a day at the same time they made a final decision on the LNG project. They had planned to hold off on a proposal to develop a domestic plant until December 2010.
The Gorgon site is spacious enough to support the eventual development of five LNG trains capable of producing 5 million tonnes a year each. But the initial development will comprise three production trains and the domestic gas project.
Mr Beckett said it would take five years to build the first production train, meaning the first LNG could be produced in 2014. The second train would enter production about six months later and the third train and the domestic gas plant would start production a year after the first train was completed.
The domestic gas would be piped into the WA market through a new pipeline, which would connect Barrow Island with the existing Dampier to Bunbury pipeline.
Gorgon gas is high in carbon dioxide and the partners will spend more than $US850 million ($970 million) to sequester the emissions in an aquifer beneath Barrow Island. LNG production would not qualify as a protected industry under the emissions trading scheme in the Government’s green paper. A Credit Suisse analyst, Andrew Williams, yesterday said the scheme would compress margins for producers, but was unlikely to affect the commerciality of most LNG projects.
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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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