Wheatstone LNG is a liquefied natural gas plant operating in the Ashburton North Strategic Industrial Area, which is located west of

Onslow, Western Australia Onslow is a coastal town in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, north of Perth. It had a population of 829 people as at 2021 and is located within the Shire of Ashburton local government area. The town is served by Onslow Airport, and i ...

. The project is operated by Chevron.

History

The Wheatstone gas field was discovered in the Greater Gorgon Area in 2004. The final investment decision was made in September 2011, and construction began in December 2011. The first shipment was made in October 2017.

Technical description

The project is expected to cost A$29 billion (US$29.7 billion). The LNG liquefaction and export plant will have an annual capacity of 15 million tonnes of LNG. In the first stage, the plant will have a gas plant, and two LNG trains with a capacity of 4.3 million tonnes per year each. It will be supplied from the Wheatstone, Iago, Julimar and Brunello offshore gas fields.

Contractors

Front-end engineering and design works of the project are being performed by three companies.

Bechtel Bechtel Corporation () is an American engineering, procurement, construction, and project management company founded in San Francisco, California in 1898, and headquartered in Reston, Virginia in the Washington metropolitan area. , the '' E ...

is undertaking the design of the onshore gas plant. Intecsea, a subsidiary of Worley, is designing the subsea infrastructure and trunkline. And

Technip Technip S.A. was a company that carried out project management, engineering and construction for the energy industry; in 2017 it completed a merger with FMC Technologies to form TechnipFMC. Its headquarters were in the 16th arrondissement of Par ...

is designing the offshore processing platform. Geotechnical consultation for the design and construction of the LNG plant and associated infrastructure will be provided by Golder Associates. Liquefied natural gas storage and condensate tanks to be built by a joint venture between Thiess and EV LNG Australia,, a subsidiary of Vinci. Ready-for-startup operations support services will be provided by ODL, a subsidiary of

Wood Group John Wood Group plc, commonly known as Wood, is a British multinational engineering and consulting business with headquarters in Aberdeen, Scotland. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange. As of February 2025, the group employs 35,000 people ...

. The operability, reliability and maintainability contract was awarded to

Clough Clough ( ; ) is a village and townland in County Down, Northern Ireland. It sits about 3 miles from Dundrum on the A2 between Newcastle and Belfast. The A2 continues via Downpatrick and the coast via Strangford and the Portaferry – Stran ...

AMEC Amec Foster Wheeler plc was a British multinational consultancy, engineering and project management company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. In October 2017, it was acquired by Wood Group. It was focused on the Oil, Gas & Chemicals, ...

Developer

Chevron owns 72 percent of the project.

Shell Shell may refer to: Architecture and design * Shell (structure), a thin structure ** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses Science Biology * Seashell, a hard outer layer of a marine ani ...

owns 6.4 percent of the project;

Woodside Energy Woodside Energy Group Ltd (formerly Woodside Petroleum 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 a ...

owns 13 percent, Kufpec Australia, a subsidiary of the Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company, owns 7 percent; and Kyushu Electric Power owns 1.6 percent of the project.

Exports

3.1 million tonnes of LNG per year will be exported to Tokyo Electric. Korea Gas Corp. ( KOGAS) will buy 1.5 million tonnes per year. Tohoku Electric and

Chubu Electric , abbreviated as Chuden in Japanese, is a Japanese electric utilities provider for the middle Chūbu region of the Honshu island of Japan. It provides electricity at 60 Hz, though an area of Nagano Prefecture uses 50 Hz. Chubu Electric ...

will each buy 1 million tons per year. 300,000 tonnes per year will be exported to Kyushu Electric.

References