Page 12 - AsianOil Week 24
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Greater interest
Japanese interest in LNG has grown since the Fukushima nuclear disaster in March 2011 prompted the government to shut down all of the country’s reactors over safety concerns. While the Japanese gov- ernment has been seeking to bring its sus- pended nuclear power plants (NPPs) back online, safety concerns remain.
For example, Kyushu Electric said on June 16 that it would have to halt oper- ations at its two reactors at the Sendai NPP in Kagoshima Prefecture in March 2020, owing to delays in building a facility designed to prepare for a terrorist attack.
In April, the Nuclear Regulation Authority ordered reactors without these facilities to be shuttered by the March 2020 deadline.
help the project secure access to low-cost nancing from the Japan Bank for Interna- tional Cooperation (JBIC).
“ at enhances our relative competitiveness and cost-e ectiveness when compared to other projects,” Cha said.
The group’s focus is similar to Nor- way-based Golar’s small-scale FLNG project in Cameroon. FLNG Hilli Episeyo, which completed its first scheduled maintenance window in the nal quarter of 2018, has been operating without issue.
The 2.4m tonne per year (t/y) Cameroon project is estimated to have cost around $1.5bn, a significant discount to the $17bn estimated price tag of Royal Dutch Shell’s 3.6m t/y Prelude FLNG that started up off- shore Australia’s northwest coast earlier this month.
Shell shipped the first LNG from Prelude project via the 490-metre long Valencia Knutsen LNG tanker on June 11 to customers in Asia. In addition to its LNG output, Prelude is also projected to
produce 1.3m tonnes per year of conden- sate and 400,000 tonnes per year of LPG when it reaches full capacity.
PTTEP defends class action suit in Australian court
PROJECTS & COMPANIES
PTTEP has argued that satellite imagery and aerial surveys have shown that oil did not reach the Indonesian coastlines
AN Australian court has started hearing a class action suit brought by Indonesian seaweed farm- ers against ai developer PTT Exploration and Production (PTTEP) over the 2009 Montara oil spill in the Timor Sea.
e case, which kicked o on June 17, claims that state-owned PTTEP’s mismanagement of the eld destroyed the 15,500 farmers’ live- lihoods and is seeking more than A$200m ($137m) in damages from the company.
e Montara-H1 well blew out on August 21, 2009 leading to an uncontrolled spill that took until November 3, 2009 to contain.
e case’s lead plainti , Daniel Sanda, claims that the seaweed industry in Rote Ndao and Kupang in East Indonesia’s Nusa Tenggara Prov- ince – which is located more than 200 km from the Montara rig – was destroyed by the compa- ny’s safety failings.
PTTEP has previously argued that satellite imagery, aerial surveys and models have shown that oil did not reach the Indonesian coastlines, adding that there has been “no lasting impact” on ecosystems in areas closest to Indonesian waters.
e farmers’ legal rm, Maurice Blackburn, said this week that more than 30 witnesses from
Indonesia – including seaweed farmers and oil spill experts – would give evidence at the 10-week trial in Sydney.
“Our experts contend that more than 300,000 litres of oil per day contaminated the sea,” Mau- rice Blackburn managing principle lawyer Ben Slade said. “We are now 10 years on from this environmental disaster and the oil company responsible and its wealthy ai parent continue to deny the devastating impact their oil spewing out uncontrollably for months on end had on Indonesian seaweed farmers.”
In 2017, Indonesia separately sued PTTEP and its parent company PTT for 27.5 trillion rupiah ($1.88bn) over alleged environmental damage from the spill. In 2012, the Northern Territory Magistrate’s Court convicted PTTEP for three occupational health and safety o ences and one non-OHS o ence and ned the ai company A$510,000 ($350,000).
PTTEP no longer owns the Montara oil eld, having sold it to Jadestone Energy in 2018. e independent, which brought the eld back into production earlier this year, announced on June 10 the start of a riserless light well intervention campaign at the eld.
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 24 19•June•2019
