The Australian: LNG Projects ‘May Need More Third-Party Gas’
SHELL Australia chairman Andrew Smith says Queensland’s LNG projects may need more third-party gas, hitting back at Santos and Origin Energy after the pair separately questioned the development path of the coal-seam gas reserves Shell holds in its Arrow joint venture with PetroChina.
Santos chief executive David Knox yesterday said the Arrow reserves, which were yet to have a development path settled despite more than a year of talks with the three Queensland LNG proponents, needed to be developed to benefit the state and the nation.
“Clearly Arrow gas at some stage needs to be developed,” Mr Knox said, noting Shell last month publicly ruled out building a stand-alone LNG plant. “It doesn’t extract any value for Australia, Queensland or for Arrow if it stays in the ground, so clearly they will be keen to monetise it.”
For more than a year, Shell has said it wants to develop Arrow with one of the three LNG projects being built on Gladstone’s Curtis Island at cost of $70bn.
But despite talks no progress appears to have been made. MORE