$69 million project to be operational by June 2017
| Date: | Thursday, 02 February 2017 |
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Western Australia’s largest gas storage facility is expected to be operational by June this year following the signing of an agreement between the State Government and DDG Tubridgi Pty Ltd this week.
With an expected total construction cost of $69 million, the facility will utilise the company’s depleted Tubridgi onshore gas reservoir, about 30km from Onslow in the State’s North West.
The project is strategically located in close proximity to the Chevron-operated Wheatstone and BHP-operated Macedon domestic gas production facilities, and will be connected to the Dampier to Bunbury Natural Gas Pipeline by existing gas transmission laterals.
The Department of Mines and Petroleum’s (DMP) Executive Director Petroleum Jeff Haworth said the project would play an important role in enhancing energy security in Western Australia when fully operational.
“The Tubridgi facility will enable banking of unused gas to cover planned production facility outages,” Mr Haworth said.
The agreement provides for effective regulation in respect of safety, environmental and resource management associated with injection, storage and recovery of petroleum.
CITIC Pacific, developer and operator of the Sino Iron magnetite project at Cape Preston, will be the foundation customer under a 10-year gas storage agreement with DDG with options for a further five years.
DDG Tubridgi Pty Ltd is currently negotiating with other companies in the region to sign additional contracts.
The facility has a storage capacity of around 42 Petajoules with daily injection and withdrawal rates of around 50 terrajoules/day.
One of the advantages of the project is that the reservoir is quite shallow at approximately 550 metres, meaning that the required injection pressures are low.
