Inpex to spend $5b to develop Masela LNG project

Japan oil, gas firm Inpex Corp. will spend more than US$5 billion to develop its Masela LNG plant in Timor Sea to come onstream in 2015/16 with capacity of around 5 million tones per annum, accompany official said on Wednesday.

Hirohisa Ota, Executive Officer and GM Jakarta Office told reporters that the company, which has submitted plan of development (PoD) for the giant gas block earlier this week, that the block would produce 500-800MMCFD of gas for 20 years from Masela to feed the LNG plant.

Ota said the company preferred to build floating LNG processing plant in the block rather than developing a separate LNG processing plant in one of the remote islands that have distance of 150-600kms from the block.

BPMIGAS Chairman R. Priyono earlier said that Inpex has upgrade its reserves estimate at Masela to 14 TCF from 10 TCF earlier following successful appraisal drilling campaign the company had recently undertaken.

Priyono said Inpex has submitted PoD with two development scenarios: one is to develop floating LNG plant and another one is piping the gas to Aru island, where LNG processing plant would be built. Priyono said the distance between Masela and Aru island was around 400 kilometers.

Another Inpex official said that the company might be looking for partner to develop the project once the PoD is approved. Currently Inpex has 100 percent interest in the block. (godang)