QGC managing director Richard Cottee said infrastructure to meet the 4 petajoule (PJ) per annum CS Energy contract was now substantially complete.

“The 14km export pipeline from Berwyndale South has been completed and the hot tap into the Roma-to-Brisbane Pipeline was drilled and plugged last week, awaiting final connection by the end of March,” Cottee said.

“We have enormous confidence that the field can provide reliable and economical gas supplies to our existing customers and to meet additional gas demand as the opportunity arises.”

Twenty four of the 25 development wells for the CS Energy contract have now been drilled and five of the all-Walloon wells and five of the all-Juandah wells have been completed.

Total gas flows from these 10 Berwyndale South wells reached an average 4.5 million cubic feet per day, with three wells free-flowing gas above 800,000 cubic feet per day.

“Production testing has demonstrated there is ample gas to meet our existing contracts, and the strength of gas flows augurs well for our project economics,” Cottee said.

“The wells that reached 800,000 cfd were still climbing but we have elected to shut in the wells to preserve the gas for sales.

“In the last week, more than 40% of the gas required for the CS Energy contract was

produced from just 10 wells – and half of those wells only began flowing after mid-

January 2006.”

Work has already begun to expand the field to supply Braemar Power Station with an additional 4 PJ per annum. This involves additional infrastructure works and drilling a further 16 gas wells.

QGC is the operator of the Berwyndale South Gasfield and is the majority owner, in partnership with Sentient Gas Australia (10%).