Reuters: Japan's Inpex Says Ichthys Project a Little Behind Schedule

Progress on the $34 billion Ichthys liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in Australia is slightly behind schedule but it is still on target to start commercial production by the end of 2016, operator Inpex Corp said on Friday.

Ichthys was 64 percent complete as of December, a little bit behind a target of around 70 percent, Managing Executive Officer Masahiro Murayama told a news conference on its quarterly earnings.

"For example, the drilling of production wells was delayed by about two months," he said. "But we have a catch-up plan to increase the drilling ships to two from the previous plan of one ship. We have not changed the schedule to start production in December 2016."

When Inpex made its final investment decision in January 2012, Brent crude was hovering around $110 a barrel, but Inpex is not worried about the profitability of Ichthys, despite the steep declines in oil prices, Inpex President and CEO Toshiaki Kitamura told Reuters last month. MORE