Page 11 - AsianOil Week 03 2023

AsianOil ENERGY TRANSITION AsianOil

Australia’s Western Gas allocated land

for ammonia, methanol production

AUSTRALIA THE government of Western Australia has allo- condensate. The project will supply gas feedstock
cated land in the Ashburton North Strategic for the spare LNG processing capacity in West-
It will be an offshoot of Industrial Area (ANSIA) to Western Gas, which ern Australia’s north-west region.
the offshore Equus Gas will use the property for the further development The first phase of Equus development calls
project. of its wholly owned subsidiary, Equus Energy for subsea production wells to be linked to a
(ANSIA) Pty Ltd. floating production storage and offloading
Western Gas said in a statement released on (FPSO) vessel. Dry gas sales will be transported
6 January that the land allocation will enable through a new pipeline to the Pluto A platform
Equus Energy to develop a scalable low-carbon and from there to shore using the existing off-
ammonia and methanol production facility that shore Pluto trunkline. Equus gas will then be
will be an offshoot of its offshore Equus Gas routed to the existing Pluto LNG plant and the
Project. Equus Energy, which will operate the Karratha Gas Plant (KGP) LNG export facilities
blue ammonia and methanol plants, was estab- and the WA domestic gas markets through the
lished to help deliver on the company’s vision existing onshore Dampier to Bunbury pipeline
for the transition to lower-carbon energy, Will infrastructure.
Barker, company executive director, said in the Western Gas has recently signed non-bind-
statement. ing agreements with the partners in the North
“Securing land within the Ashburton North West Shelf Project and Pluto LNG to process
Strategic Industrial Area is a key in harnessing up to 3mn tonnes per year (tpy) of Equus Gas
the region’s abundant resources of natural gas, for LNG export and the Western Australia
solar and wind energy to develop value-adding market.
downstream industries,” Barker said. The Western Gas statement said that Equus
The ANSIA is located some 12 km south of Energy has been working with leading partners
Onslow, Western Australia. From there, Equus to support engineering design, production tech-
Energy will be able to access natural gas feed- nologies and project financing and that the com-
stock for ammonia and methanol production pany will now move forward on discussions with
from Western Gas’ Equus Gas Project, which is Development WA to finalise key terms for land
located offshore in the Carnavon Basin, some tenure in the ANSIA.
200 km north-west of Onslow. The Equus Gas Project supports a number of
The Equus Gas Project is ready for develop- the Western Australia government’s strategic ini-
ment, the company said, after having invested tiatives, including the establishment of [a] mul-
more than $1.8bn since 2007 in exploration, ti-green industrial precinct, progressing energy
appraisal and engineering studies. The project’s transformation, the diversification of WA’s econ-
resource is estimated to hold 2 trillion cubic feet omy, plus support for regional communities and
(56.6bn cubic metres) of gas and 42mn barrels of local jobs, Barker said.™

Week 03 20•January•2023 www. NEWSBASE .com P11