It had been estimated the project would cost at least $40 billion - compared to the shelved James Price Point option which would have cost closer to $80 billion - and, even with the savings Coleman flagged at APPEA this week, Browse would still likely add up to billions of dollars.

When asked whether Browse would need a lower cost of development compared to the existing seven LNG projects under construction in Australia in order to go ahead, Coleman said: "That's a pretty low bar to beat. They're pretty expensive. They're at the top end of the cost curve.

"So no, Browse is well below that, and what we're trying to do is to bring Browse down even further because in these projects, the only thing you know and can control is how much you spend.

"At the end of the day the reservoir is going to deliver what it will deliver and price will be what the price is."

Coleman said clarifying project costs was paramount, adding that the key to success was to focus on how much could be afforded as opposed to how much could be spent.

"How much I can spend might be [different than how much I can afford]. If I say ‘spend' that means I'm going out to borrow and do a whole bunch of things I maybe don't really want to do. If I can afford it, it's a different thing," Coleman told Energy News on the sidelines of APPEA 2015.

The CEO once again confirmed the expectation that Browse would comprise three floating developments for the Torosa, Brecknock and Calliance fields and that costs could reduce drastically from the first prototype onwards.

Coleman would not, however, reveal specific costs or timelines, but said the company would release figures once the project went into front end engineering design phase.

He said lingering debate around what the optimum time in a shipyard should be was affecting the company's ability to clarify such figures at present.

"One thing industry has learned over the past few years - not everybody acknowledges it yet but it's something we're very firm on - is you have to ‘resource level' in shipyards," Coleman said.

"Shipyards have a propensity to take on too much work, and you're seeing projects getting stuck in shipyards, and a shipyard has a very limited footprint in which they can lay things down, so if something gets late or delayed, then the whole thing just ‘gums up'.

"We're finalising just what the timing is, so it's too early for me to tell you. We're saying ‘just focus on the first one and the rest will follow fairly quickly and we'll optimise that as we go through.

"There are three discreet accumulations that we're going after, so we can do that - we can phase it - and we want to learn as we go. There is some learning still to come through from Prelude on that."

Cost savings

Coleman revealed Woodside had built "quite modest savings" into the project's economics, but said the figures were far from final.

"My personal expectation is that it will be much more than that," he said.

"It's difficult to say what Browse eventually will be, but based on similar projects I've seen that go like this, I've seen cost savings in the order of 20% between the first one and the third one.

"I didn't tell you Browse is going to get that, but you can see where my end point is - that's the prize. But whether Browse will get there or not, I don't know."

As a CEO that is driving a company still on the front foot in the exploration space, while cashed up in a market widely held to be ripe for M&A, Coleman says the key message from investors is for Woodside to stick to its strategy - that is, keep being predictable and, importantly, keep the discipline in the investment.

While Coleman said while most of the company's investors were now on board following a process of change, Woodside was still working on the delicate balance between the "fringe" investors still pushing for higher dividends and growing the company to ensure its future.

"Today, investors in Woodside at least, for the majority, very much understand the strategy that we're on and the discipline that we're going through in investment decisions," he said.

"They appreciate the fact that we've remained true to our commitment to return cash to them as quickly as we can."

This, he said, could be seen in Woodside's payout ratios and the way the company had phased projects and reduced capital spending and exploration, among other things.

"They are very supportive of the growth build that we're putting into the portfolio," Coleman said.

"There are always those on the margins who want more dividends, but equally we're a resources company and we're always trying to balance that desire for more dividends versus the need to invest in the future so we can continually grow."

Woodside said in a project update last month that the Browse joint venturers were targeting entry into the FEED phase by mid-2015. The FEED phase is the last stage before a final investment decision, which Woodside is targeting for next year.

Combined, the three Browse fields are estimated to contain gross contingent resources (2C) of 15.4 trillion cubic feet of dry gas and 453 million barrels of condensate.