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Exxon makes huge gas discovery
MELBOURNE, Australia (CNN) -- U.S. oil major ExxonMobil said Monday that a gas field off the northwest coast of Australia could be the largest discovery yet made in Australian waters. It said its Jansz field, extending over an area of 2,000 square kilometres (770 square miles) about 200 kilometers offshore from the town of Karratha, could have 20 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas. ExxonMobil plans to drill an appraisal well and perform a production test in mid-2003. The gas is in deep water in the Carnarvon Basin, the location of the massive North West Shelf gas venture that is Australia's biggest resource project. ExxonMobil said it drilled a well, Jansz-2, in late 2002 in 1350 meters of water to a depth of about 3300 meters below sea level. This well was to determine the extent of gas first discovered in 2000. "ExxonMobil believes this to be the largest gas discovery ever to have been made in Australian waters," the company's Australian exploration director Doug Schwebel said in a statement Monday. Schwebel said Jansz now represented about 40 percent of the undeveloped discovered gas resources in the deepwater Carnarvon Basin. ExxonMobil holds a 50 percent stake and is the operator. Another U.S. oil major, ChevronTexaco, holds the other 50 percent. Chevron is operator and 50 percent stakeholder in an adjoining permit block, with ExxonMobil holding 25 percent and Royal Dutch/Shell and BP holding 12.5 percent each. Gas is a major export item for Australia, with the North West Shelf joint venture clinching a 25-year, $15 billion deal last August to supply liquefied natural gas (LNG) to China. The six equal partners in that venture are Australian operator Woodside Petroleum, BHP Billiton, Shell, ChevronTexaco, BP and a Mitsubishi/Mitsui joint venture, Japan Australia LNG. Woodside followed its China breakthrough by announcing deals in January for long-term supplies to new customers in South Korea and Japan. The North West Shelf venture has about 15 percent of the Japanese gas market, despite Malaysia's Petronas signing a 15-year contract earlier this month to supply up to 7.4 million tonnes of LNG to Tokyo Electric Power Co and Tokyo Gas Co. The Petronas deal is worth more than $20 billion.
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