 | The Bullroarer - Friday 14 March 2008 | TOD: Australia/New Zealand | Prof Peter Newman Diamonds of Hope (Part A) |  |
9 comments on A Gas To Liquids Plant For the North West Shelf ?
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The size of Wheatstone, does not at first glance appear to make it a cost effective candidate for LNG.
If, as the article suggests, Gorgon will be economically marginal, how can the much smaller field be?
Reading Nigel Wilson's articles reveals a little more. Jim Blackwell is quoted as saying that partnerships are essential "The partners of choice in our industry will be those who master the principles of partnership," Indeed he is correct, but perhaps he should be looking at his own companies track record. In 2003 we in the industry were subjected to the FUD memo, and we were supposedly working in partnership with them!!
The majors have never made the best of bedfellows and even though they are now minors in comparison to the state owned oil cos. like Saudi Aramco, a legacy of behaviour patterns remain.
Gas to liquids was used by the New Zealanders in Taranaki, where they had a plant at Motanui? This was run by Mobil and closed in the nineties when the price of oil dropped. The source for this was the Maui gas field, which was of similar size to Wheatstone. I think there was talk of a LNG plant for that field as well.
The question to be asked though, is the economic sense of turning gas into liquids at the opposite side of a vast continent/country to the major market for those liquids? Perhaps the shorter trip to SE Asia is actually the intended target market?
Atua
With regard to helping our balance of payments - who in their right mind would think the liquids are destined for this country!!!
Well - believers in the export land model believe this theory applies to all producers.
In any case, we get a lot of refined products from offshore, usually Singapore, so this would at least provide an onshore option that could be directed for internal use if need be.
Atua - I was going to mention the Kiwi methanol plant but I wasn't quite sure of the history and it doesn't seem to be a going concern now.
There has been talk about constructing a methanol plant in Darwin for a long time as well (since at least 2000) but as far as I'm aware this hasn't actually happened. MEO Australia still has project planned :
http://www.methanol.com.au/_project_tassie.asp
Big Gav- The Motunui plant was a combined plant that made Methanol and then converted it to synthetic petrol. Whether this is how it is done elsewhere in the world I do not know. The synthetic petrol plant was closed in April 1999. The methanol trains were mothballed, but as the following link shows, it appears Methanex is going to reopen at least one train. http://www.stuff.co.nz/4377887a13.html
Hope this is helpful.
Pique Oil
Thanks.
Now it seems that there will be more gas flowing from offshore Taranaki to replace the declining Maui field it makes sense to start up again - especially given current oil prices...