Inpex to delay FID on Ichthys

Inpex yesterday announced that they will not make a final investment decision on the $US20b Ichthys liquefied natural gas project this year as expected, and will also push back the original expected start-up.

A final investment decision was expected this year for construction of the project at Middle Arm Peninsula at Blaydin Point in Darwin Harbour and offshore Darwin. The first LNG shipment was scheduled for 2015 and the project was to generate more than 2,000 jobs during peak of the four year construction phase, with a full time workforce of around 300 during production.

The Ichthys LNG project includes plans for what could be the world’s largest floating processing platform, capable of stripping out 100,000 barrels of condensate per day, as well as a subsea pipeline of more than 850 kilometres long to the onshore LNG plant at Blaydin Point.

Bloomberg quoted director Masahiro Murayama as saying the company would not make the decision to go ahead with the project this year or start operations in 2015.

No reasons were given for the decision.

“Inpex has probably been reviewing the structure of the Ichthys project’s cost, at a time global gas demand growth is slowing briefly,” Bloomberg quoted Mizuho Securities senior energy analyst Hidetoshi Shioda as saying.