East Timor plans second LNG plant
East Timor plans second LNG plant By Helen Clark
BANGKOK, Sept 16 (Reuters) - East Timor has plans for a second liquefied natural gas plant on its south coast tapping leftover gas from the Bayu-Undan and Chuditch fields, Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Francisco da Costa Monteiro told Reuters.
This is in addition to the much larger planned 5 million metric ton per year Timor LNG that it hopes will be fed by the Greater Sunrise gas fields it shares with Woodside Energy WDS.AX.
Speaking to Reuters on the sidelines of a conference, the minister said he believed leftover gas from Santos-operated STO.AX Bayu-Undan could total 1 trillion cubic feet of gas which, when added to Sunda Energy’s SNDA.L Chuditch gas field, could underpin a new 1.5 million ton per year development with a 20-year life span.
By comparison the United States' LNG capacity is around 130 million tons a year.
Bayu-Undan fed Santos’ 3.6 million ton Darwin LNG plant for a decade before going into decline.
On Monday the minister said he expected an investment decision for the multi-Tcf Sunrise gas field by 2029.
“We are still in talks with relevant parties,” he told Reuters of plans for a second LNG plant.
“I just came from China. We had some discussions.”
Santos had planned to repurpose the field for carbon capture and storage but Monteiro has said that can only proceed if Santos agrees to develop the remaining reservoir gas and use field infrastructure to process third-party gas.
Santos confirmed the discussions and noted it was awaiting a draft agreement from the East Timor government.
Earlier in September, Managing Director Kevin Gallagher told a conference in Darwin there was still a "significant amount" of gas at Bayu-Undan.
Sunda CEO Andy Butler told Reuters the Chuditch field could send around 300 million cubic feet per day.
(Reporting by Helen Clark;Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)