Chevron Preparing for Gorgon Restart
Wednesday 20 July 2016
US supermajor Chevron is preparing to restart production at its Gorgon liquefied natural gas project in Western Australia about three weeks after a gas leak halted output.
“Start-up activities are underway on Gorgon Train 1, with production to recommence shortly,” a Chevron spokesperson confirmed via e-mail to Upstream.
Output at the US$54 billion LNG project was stopped at the beginning of the month after a “minor gas leak” was discovered in a pipe at the plant’s acid removal unit which also forced the evacuation of workers.
At the time Chevron indicated that it expected output to resume within a week, with only minor repair work needed on the low-pressure flare system at the acid removal unit, but three weeks on production remained off line.
It has not been a smooth start for Chevron at Gorgon since production originally commenced in March this year, with the company forced to halt output not long after the first cargo was shipped on 21 March due to issues with the train’s propane refrigerant circuit.
Chevron was able to get its second LNG shipment away following the leak but no other cargoes have left Barrow Island since.
It was scheduled to ship another four cargoes this month, with Chevron’s Asia Excellence expected to depart on 11 July. However, the vessel is still anchored near the plant.
The company has previously stated it expects the second and third trains to come on line at six-month intervals, meaning the second train should start up before the end of this year and the third train in the first half of 2017.
The Chevron spokesperson said on Wednesday that construction was continuing on Gorgon’s remaining two trains, with the timing not affected by the problems with Train 1.
Once all three trains are complete, Gorgon will have a combined nameplate capacity of 15.6 million tonnes per annum of LNG and will be fed from the Gorgon and Jansz-Io gas fields, which lie about 65 and 130 kilometres off the coast, respectively.
Along with the LNG plant on Barrow Island, the project also includes a domestic gas plant with the capacity to supply 300 terajoules of gas per day to Western Australia.
The Gorgon project partners include operator Chevron on 47.3%, ExxonMobil on 25%, Shell on 25%, Osaka Gas on 1.25%, Tokyo Gas on 1% and Chubu Electric Power on 0.417%.