MOSCOW (MRC) -- ExxonMobil Corp. and BHP Billiton Ltd. laid out plans to develop a huge natural gas field off the coast of Australia that would use the world's largest vessel capable of processing the gas at sea, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The vessel would tap into the company's remote Scarborough gas field, located in the Carnarvon Basin about 300 kilometers from the Western Australia coast, and use floating liquefied natural gas technology (FLNG).
The FLNG technology is untried but has captured the attention of some of the world's biggest energy companies seeking to develop gas fields that are too small or remote to develop using pipelines and onshore facilities. Royal Dutch Shell PLC is a leading proponent of FLNG vessels, which it plans to deploy in Australia and possibly elsewhere.
Exxon and BHP's proposed facility would be capable of producing between 6 million and 7 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas a year. Production would begin in 2020-21, the companies said in a filing posted on the website of Australia's environment department Tuesday.
We remind that, as MRC wrote previously, in early 2013, ExxonMobil started operations at one of the world's largest ethylene steam crackers, the centerpiece of the company's multi-billion dollar expansion project at its Singapore petrochemical complex. The expansion adds 2.6 million tpy of new finished product capacity. It includes two new polyethylene (PE) plants, a polypropylene (PP) plant, a metallocene elastomers unit, an oxo-alcohol unit and an aromatics expansion, all of which are completed and beginning operation. Ethylene production is expected to start in the next few months.
ExxonMobil is the largest non-government owned company in the energy industry and produces about 3 percent of the world's oil and about 2 percent of the world"s energy.
MRC