Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop was present at the Samsung Heavy Industries shipyard where she officially named the central processing facility (CPF) Ichthys Explorer.
Former Chief Minister of the Northern Territory Clare Martin officially named the projects floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) facility the Ichthys Venturer at the Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering shipyard.
INPEX President and CEO Toshiaki Kitamura said “Our sincere thanks go to our facilities’ Godmothers, the Hon. Julie Bishop and the Hon. Clare Martin.
“On behalf of the Ichthys Joint Venture, INPEX is honoured to have their involvement in this milestone event and is most grateful for the support they have shown the Ichthys LNG Project.
“My thanks extend to all the teams and contractors who completed more than 60 million man-hours of work to safely construct these remarkable, world-class facilities.”
At 130 metres by 120 metres, the Ichthys Explorer is the world’s largest semi- submersible platform, and will receive well fluids from an intricate subsea gas gathering system, located at a water depth of approximately 250 m, within the Ichthys gas-condensate field.
Most liquids will be transferred from the Ichthys Explorer to the 336 m Ichthys Venturer for offshore processing and condensate offloading.
The Ichthys LNG Project comprises an onshore LNG processing plant, offshore processing facilities, condensate storage, a 500 MW combined-cycle power plant and an 889 km, 1,050 mm diameter offshore pipeline.
The project will develop gas from the Ichthys gas field, located in permit WA-285-P in the Browse Basin, approximately 200 km offshore northwest Australia.
Joint venture interests in the project are INPEX (63.445 per cent), TOTAL (30 per cent), CPC (2.625 per cent), Tokyo Gas (1.575 per cent), Osaka Gas (1.2 per cent), Chubu Electric (0.735 per cent) and Toho Gas (0.420 per cent).