Central Petroleum's managing director says the fast-tracked Dingo pipeline and plant have been commissioned and the necessary regulatory approvals have been secured.

The development was completed ahead of schedule and 10% below budget.

The plant is connected up to the Owens Springs power plant, and is ready to started gas sales as soon as Power and Water Corporation's engineering and tie-in to the company's delivery point has been completed.

The field will be operated remotely from Brewers Estate on the outskirts of Alice Springs.

Central only secured the undeveloped gas project from Magellan Petroleum on March 31, and has been able to get the field to the point of gas sales in less than 12 months.

"Strategically it was important to Central for its future cash flows to be underpinned by stable, inflation-indexed, Australia dollar denominated domestic gas contracts," Cottee said.

"The completion of the Dingo gas project is an important milestone in the implementation of this strategy enabling Central to supply the domestic gas market from two distinct established conventional fields centred near Alice Springs."

Central also operates the Palm Valley gas field and the Surprise oil field. Almost 18 months ago the junior had no producing assets.

"Our employment strategy is important to underpin the long-term sustainability of Central's operations in the Northern Territory. Work practices that facilitate and encourage families and indigenous people to live and work locally helps build skills, wealth and a better future for our whole local community in which we live and operate," Cottee said.

As with Central's small Surprise field, Cottee said the company put a focus on workers who would live in and around the field, in this case Alice Springs, and it focuses on hiring NT locals.

Almost one third of its operational employees are indigenous Australians, many trained by the company.

The field will produce from the existing Dingo-2 and Dingo-3 wells, which are connected by a 43km pipeline to the Brewer Estate, which also hosts the power station.

Pipeline and plant capacity is up to 2.4 petajoules per annum, with a maximum expected delivery of 1.96PJ pa.

The cost of the pipeline averaged $50,000/inch/km, below the Australian average of is around $80,000/inch/km.

The main pipeline contractor was Marais Laying Technologies which used innovative technology that assisted in achieving project savings.