Woodside to stay as Chevron exits project
Woodside Petroleum remains committed to its Kitimat LNG project in Canada after Chevron said it would sell its half-stake.
Woodside Petroleum remains committed to its Kitimat LNG project in Canada after Chevron said it would sell its half-stake amid a writedown in the value of the planned gas export facility.
Chevron plans to offload its 50 per cent operating stake in the proposed plant, which Woodside had targeted for a potential start-up after 2027.
The US energy giant included Kitimat in a broader $US10bn-$US11bn ($14.7bn-$16.1bn) writedown announced on Wednesday, with more than half that amount attributed to a revaluing of its US shale assets.
Woodside — which owns the other 50 per cent Kitimat stake — said it still planned to develop the project.
“Woodside is committed to the Kitimat LNG Project and continues to work with all stakeholders to progress the development as part of our post-2027 growth strategy,” a Woodside spokesman said.
Chevron said while Kitimat was a globally competitive LNG project, the company saw better investments in other parts of its global portfolio and said the stake may be of higher value to another company.
“Chevron intends to commence soliciting expressions of interest for its interests in the Kitimat LNG Project. No timeline has been set to conclude this process,” the company said in a statement.
“Chevron will continue to work closely with our joint venture partner Woodside, government and First Nations partners during this process.”
Kitimat LNG includes up to three LNG trains totalling 18 million tonnes of annual output, making it a larger project than either Woodside’s North West Shelf or Chevron’s Gorgon LNG plants in Western Australia.
Woodside picked up its stake in Kitimat after sealing a $4.5bn deal with US-based Apache in December 2014.
The deal included Apache’s 13 per cent interest in the huge Wheatstone LNG project in WA as well as a 50 per cent stake in the Kitimat LNG venture in Canada and a 65 per cent position in both the Balnaves oil project and the Julimar-Brunello upstream gas development.
The bulk of the price was for the Australian assets.
Woodside last month laid out plans to nearly double production over the next decade through the giant Scarborough and Browse LNG projects in WA and its Senegal oil development.
Output will rise to 100 million barrels of oil equivalent next year and eventually reach 150 million boe by 2028 as the company prepares to take a bet topping $45bn on its next WA growth projects.