Despite the hold-ups, construction of the plant finished recently and the plant is being tested before output starts, reported local newspaper The Standard.
The newspaper reported clean gas from Tru Energy’s neighbouring gas plant has been introduced to determine whether the Otway gas plant was ready to take raw gas from the Thylacine and Geographe gas fields off Victoria.
On its website, Woodside said the project would supply up to 10% of south-eastern Australia’s annual natural gas demand.
Over the life of the project, the Thylacine and Geographe fields are expected to produce 950 billion cubic feet, or 885 petajoules, of gas, 12.2 million barrels of condensate and 1.7 million tonnes of liquid petroleum gas.
TXU, one of Victoria’s major power companies, has bought Woodside’s share of gas from the fields, taking up to 30PJ of gas a year for about 10 years.
The development is based on a remotely operated platform, offshore and onshore pipelines and an onshore gas plant at Port Campbell, southwest of Melbourne.
Participants in the Otway gas project are: Woodside, as operator with 51.55%, Origin Energy (30.75%) and Benaris International (12.7%) and CalEnergy Gas (5%).
