Regional LNG: China expected to buy 40% gas reserves at Australia?s Gorgon project: Report

ChevronTexaco Corp. expects about 40 percent of natural gas from the large Gorgon project off Western Australia to be supplied to China, Reuters reported Wednesday.

About 40 percent of the remaining gas was expected to be supplied to Japan and Korea while 20 percent would be supplied to the U.S. West Coast, Joseph Naylor, vice president at ChevonTexaco's Global Gas division said at an energy conference in Houston.

The move comes as energy-thirsty countries like China play an increasing role in natural gas deals.

A steady convergence of natural gas prices in the United States, Britain and Japan in recent months has shown the increasingly global nature of the natural gas market, Naylor said on the sidelines of the conference.

The A$11 billion Gorgon project is expected to deliver in 2008 its first liquefied natural gas (LNG), a super-cooled, compressed form of gas.

Royal Dutch/Shell with 28.6 percent and ExxonMobil Corp with 14.3 percent are the other partners in the joint venture led by ChevronTexaco with a 57.1 percent stake. (*)