Page 10 - AsianOil Week 32
P. 10
AsianOil OCEANIA AsianOil
The field’s attraction lies in its long-term Australia’s upstream sector is going through
supply contract, which helps to insulate it from a shake up amid the collapse in oil prices ear-
global oil and gas price volatility. At the same lier this year, with developers reining in capital
time however, The Australian said industry expenditure. However, with the industry hav-
observers viewed Eni’s 15-year supply contract ing just gone through a painful period of write-
with the Northern Territory government owned downs, investors are once more looking for
Power and Water Corp. as having limited upside, acquisition opportunities. Woodside said this
which could make growing earnings a more week that it was looking for suitable targets now
challenging prospect. that the worst was likely over for the sector.
Chevron ordered to inspect
remaining Gorgon trains for damage
PROJECTS & CHEVRON and its partners in the Gorgon LNG reported cracking in Train 2 is such that there
COMPANIES project have been ordered by the government of may be similar defects in Trains 1 and 3,” said the
Western Australia to inspect the propane heat DMIRS’ director of dangerous goods and petro-
exchangers at Trains 1 and 3 at the 15.6mn tonne leum safety, Steve Emery.
per year (tpy) liquefaction terminal. This comes This comes after the DMIRS said last month
as Train 2 at Gorgon remains offline for repairs that it would inspect the plant itself in response to
after an inspection of that train’s propane heat the concerns raised by the trade union. On a com-
exchangers during planned maintenance found pany earnings call on July 31 – a week before the
weld quality issues and cracks in the equipment. inspection order was issued – Chevron’s vice presi-
The US-based super-major previously said dent, Jay Johnson, said the company was in the pro-
Train 2 would be returned to service in Septem- cess of evaluating how to best address Trains 1 and
ber. But the Australian Manufacturing Workers 3. Now, there is additional time pressure.
Union has voiced fears that the cracks may not be It is not yet clear whether Chevron may
reparable and may require the heat exchangers to have to shut down the trains in order to carry
be replaced altogether. This would likely require out the inspection – and carry out any neces-
a longer timeframe. sary repairs – but the order raises the prospect
Western Australia’s Department of Mines, that the whole plant could be shut down. The
Industry Regulation and Safety (DMIRS) said possibility of a shut-down comes as the LNG
the inspection orders for Trains 1 and 3 had to market continues to struggle to absorb a global
be carried out before August 21, giving Chevron oversupply, which has been exacerbated by the
two weeks. hit to demand from the coronavirus (COVID-
“The [DMIRS’] Dangerous Goods Direc- 19) pandemic. Indeed, other LNG producers
torate issued the notice as the nature of the may welcome an outage at Gorgon.
P10 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 32 13•August•2020
