The plant has five LNG trains, launched between 1989 and 2008, with a capacity of 16.9 million tonnes per year and most of these volumes supply customers in Japan.
In September 2022, the Woodside-operated Karratha gas plant, part of the North West Shelf project, shipped its 6000th cargo of LNG.
The facility also has domestic gas trains, condensate stabilization units, and LPG units.
Australia’s oldest LNG plant has been liquefying gas from fields located off the north-west coast of Australia since 1989.
However, these fields are slowly running out of gas and the project is now shifting its focus towards a different business model aimed at processing gas from third parties.
Production down
Woodside’s share of production from the NWS project in the first half of this year was 19.6 MMboe.
This was a 14 percent decrease compared with H1 2023 due to planned offshore maintenance and natural field decline, Woodside said in its financial report on Tuesday.
In H1 2024, 6 MMboe of Pluto gas was processed at KGP through the interconnector.
Back in 2022, Woodside started sending gas from its Pluto offshore field to the LNG plant at Karratha.
This accelerated production of Pluto gas followed the start-up of the Pluto-KGP interconnector.
Woodside operates both the NWS and Pluto LNG facilities. Its partners in NWS include BP, Chevron, Japan Australia LNG, and Shell.
In H1 2024, the NWS JV participants took FID on the Lambert West project which will support ongoing production from NWS.
“Discussions continue between the NWS JV participants and other resource owners for the processing of third-party gas to utilize ullage at KGP,” it said.
Processing of Waitsia gas continued and is expected to ramp up when the Waitsia Stage 2 facility commences production, which is expected in late 2024, Woodside said.
As the NWS celebrates 40 years of operations, the project is entering a period of production decline.
KGP currently has processing ullage due to natural field decline and the current level of third-party gas processing demand, Woodside said.
“To manage both operating costs and emissions, NWS is preparing to take one LNG train offline between late 2024 and mid-2025,” Woodside said.
Woodside also said that State and Commonwealth regulatory approval processes are progressing for the NWS project extension, which will support long-term operations and processing of future third-party gas resources at KGP.
Results
Woodside reported a 14 percent drop in underlying after-tax profit to $1.632 billion for the first half of this year.
The company reported net profit after tax (NPAT) for the half-year of $1.937 billion.
Woodside’s directors have determined a fully franked interim dividend of 69 US cents per share, representing an approximately 80 percent payout ratio of underlying NPAT.
