During a third-quarter earnings conference call, chief executive officer Jim Mulva said the groundwater contamination scare at APLNG's operations in the Surat Basin was not affecting discussions with potential LNG buyers.

Last week, the JV found traces of banned carcinogenic BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes) chemicals in fluid samples taken from eight coal seam gas exploration wells in the Surat Basin.

"With respect to the information on some of the wells, it's really not having an impact with respect to discussions with potential buyers of LNG from this project," he said.

"Certainly, most concerned to ourselves, we address this. We think we're going to be able to handle this, but it's not having an adverse impact with respect to potential buyers."

Conoco vice-president for investor relations Clayton Reasor said during the conference call the JV was engaged with several potential LNG buyers as it moves to make a final investment decision before the end of the year.

"In Australia, APLNG is engaged with several potential LNG buyers in support of moving to FID, but we're not in a position to discuss information regarding specific market discussion at this time," he said.

"However, we plan to have an announcement regarding the sale of two trains of LNG before year end."

Earlier this month, an analyst report from Citigroup claimed the JV was considering a single LNG train rather than two trains for the initial stage of the $35 billion project.

The report said that regional oversupply of LNG could force APLNG to halve the size of its initial stage, adding it was unsure if Tokyo Gas, believed to be one of the buyers, was interested in taking LNG derived from coal seam gas into its portfolio.

The most likely target customers for APLNG were in China and India.

Meanwhile the company reported its third-quarter earnings more than doubled from the same period last year due to higher oil and gas prices and better margins for refined products.

Profit for the period was $US3.06 billion, up from the $1.47 billion a year earlier.

The company's exploration and production business reported a 60% profit jump to $1.5 billion while production of 1.72 million barrels of oil equivalent per day was 4% lower than the previous corresponding period due to field declines in North America and Europe, as well as asset sales.