| |
Thursday, 24th April 2008
For NT Business Review - Tiina Urvet
MEDIA RELEASE
SEAAOC
2008 looms as exploration booms
Australia has entered its biggest ever era of petroleum
exploration as energy prices and demands for liquid natural gas
escalate.
"We are in a unique position to reap enormous rewards from our
resources," says APPEA Chief Executive Belinda Robinson, who will
chair the first day of SEAAOC, northern Australia's largest and
longest established petroleum conference, in Darwin on July 16-18
SEAAOC will review exploration and production as well as a number of
other issues including energy security and environmental
sustainability.
"We now have more than $100 billion worth of petroleum projects
under development or in planning, and recognising the hurdles to
achieving that potential, the new Rudd Government has signaled a
strong willingness to partner with industry to get more gas projects
off the ground," Ms Robinson said.
"The investment being considered is almost eight times the original
investment in Australia's biggest ever resource project, the North
West Shelf gas project based at Karratha."
She welcomed the announcement by Resources and Energy Minister
Martin Ferguson that the United Nations had agreed to extend
Australia's territory by an area five times the size of France.
"Australia's crude oil and condensate production has declined from
nearly 100 percent of Australia's needs in 2000 to just over 60
percent today and an anticipated 32 percent by 2017.
"With more area to explore for new oil and gas reserves comes more
promise. The challenge will be to increase our knowledge of the
petroleum prospectivity of these areas and encourage exploration."
SEAAOC will be held at a time of unprecedented interest from
domestic and international companies in Australia's prospecting
activity, and the announcement by the Federal Government of 35 new
offshore petroleum exploration areas in Commonwealth waters.
According to ExxonMobil, demand for liquefied natural gas in the US
and Europe will surpass Asian consumption by as early as 2015, while
global LNG demand is set to triple between now and 2030.
A key speaker at SEAAOC will be Luluk Sumiarso, Indonesia's Director
General of Oil and Gas, who will give an overview of oil and gas
developments in Indonesia. Indonesia is a major producer, with
state-owned Pertamina aiming to increase its crude oil output 28% to
183,000 barrels a day this year from 143,000 barrels in 2007. It
also plans to increase gas output to 1.485 billion cubic feet a day
from 1.114 billion cubic feet a day in 2007.
Mark Nelson, Opportunities Manager, ConocoPhillips Australia will
review achievements and future opportunities in northern Australia.
Conoco Phillips operates the Bayu-Undan facility in the Timor sea,
where a 502km subsea pipeline sends gas to the Darwin Liquefied
Natural Gas plant to be converted to LNG for export to Asia.
Another key speaker is Eros Agostinelli, Managing Director of Eni
Australia. Eni operates oil fields and is an active explorer, with
exploration areas over 12,000 square km between the southern coast
of Timor and the northern boundary of the Joint Petroleum
Development Area (JPDA).
Chris Hart, Managing Director of MEO Australia, will review The
Tassie Shoal LNG and methanol projects in the Timor Sea, as well as
plans for exploration and production in the North West Shelf. MEO is
undertaking extensive appraisal drilling to confirm gas reserves to
underpin supply to the Tassie Shoal projects.
Other speakers will focus on key regional issues and trends in the
petroleum sector, new projects and markets.
Australia's largest resources project is in the North West Shelf in
Western Australia, where Woodside produces around 40 per cent of the
nation's oil and gas.
In 2010, Woodside will complete construction of its $12 billion
Pluto LNG Project near Karratha. In 2013 the proposed Sunrise LNG
development in the Timor Sea will be completed and by 2015 the
Browse LNG development in northern WA.
In the meantime, Santos, Australia's largest domestic gas producer,
is to construct an LNG plant on Queensland's Curtis Island to
process and export coal seam gas it will pipe from the state's Bowen
and Surat fields, an investment totaling $7.7 billion.
SEAAOC this year is expected to surpass last year's event, which set
a record with over 350 leading oil & gas professionals in
attendance.
Further information: www.seaaoc.com
Media contact - NT Government - Richard O'Leary - 0401119586
IIR Conferences - Nigel Dique, Media Officer - 02 9080 4108
nigel.dique@informa.com.au
|
