Friday, August 3, 2012

Woodside Petroleum's gas processing plant will be a costly waste, says Australian Conservation Foundation | News.com.au

Woodside Petroleum's gas processing plant will be a costly waste, says Australian Conservation Foundation | News.com.au:

But the ACF argues that a growing list of analysts recommend Woodside would save shareholders billions of dollars if it piped the LNG to existing infrastructure near the Pilbara instead.

''Credit Suisse is reporting JPP to be a much more expensive option than NWS - $36 billion compared with $26 billion to pipe gas south,'' ACF economist Simon O'Connor said.

''Similar lack of confidence in the cost profile of JPP has been reported by Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Constellation Capital, as well as Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan.'' ACF InvestorAlert3 BrowseLNGAug2012

1 comment:

  1. According to Paddy Manning it could be off for a couple more years,but then there may be a "second wind" for aussie LNG.

    http://www.smh.com.au/business/too-much-too-soon-has-left-lng-industry-overstretched-20120803-23kit.html

    The proponents of Australia's massive liquefied natural gas boom are doing the hard yards.

    Seven enormous projects worth more than $US172 billion ($165 billion) combined are under construction all at once. Already this year two operators - BG Group and Santos - have announced cost blowouts, of $US5 billion and $US2.5 billion, at their respective coal seam gas projects - Queensland Curtis LNG and Gladstone LNG.

    Santos's efforts to window-dress the announcement, as a pull-forward of upstream capital expenditure scheduled for post-2015, fell flat.

    In the last fortnight, in quarterly earnings calls, Chevron admitted it faced rising costs on its $US43 billion Gorgon project on Barrow Island, and its budget and schedule were under review, and Shell flagged it could delay Australian LNG projects worth $US17 billion.

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    The head of global gas for energy analyst Wood Mackenzie, the Edinburgh-based Noel Tomnay, says Australia will be ''one big bad news story for the next couple of years, with delays to projects and cost over-runs. It seems inevitable.''
    ........

    'In Arrow, when we heard that, for example one of the suppliers [Bechtel], is the engineering, procurement and construction contractor for all three [projects] and is promising us the fourth 'A team', then we get very suspicious because you normally don't get four A teams; you may get one and then you pay the price for the rest. So we're trying to read all of this and slow down where we have to slow down. Australia is a key component of our growth, but we will not overdo it.''

    Voser did not comment on the BROWSE PROJECT - which is in the middle of front-end engineering and design on a contentious gas hub at James Price Point on the Kimberley coast - but Wood Mackenzie's Tomnay says a final investment decision on a dedicated LNG facility there ''could certainly be delayed, given that a near-term FID [final investment decision] could make it prone to the some of the cost pressures other projects are presently experiencing''.

    Citi recently estimated the Browse project could cost as much as $US45 billion.



    For his part Tomnay expects the pipeline of Australian LNG projects might start filling up again in a couple of years.

    ''From 2014 the level of inflation pressures will start to dissipate. Labour costs and so on will start to relax. Then Australian LNG will start to get a second wind.''


    ................................

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/contractors-jobs-go-as-bhp-reins-in-costs/story-e6frg8zx-1226442571377


    ENGINEERING firms working on BHP Billiton's multi-billion-dollar expansion projects in the Pilbara have started sacking and redeploying staff as the world's biggest miner cuts spending after a review of its iron ore operations.

    The wave of white-collar redundancies comes after The Australian revealed BHP iron ore boss Jimmy Wilson told staff the company was reviewing its Pilbara growth plans and was worried about "substantial" cost escalation and slumping commodity prices.

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