PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Oil and gas major Woodside Petroleum has warned of a non-cash impairment of A$720-million in relation to its Kitimat assets, in Canada, for the 2019 financial year.
US major Chevron, which holds a 50% stake in the Kitimat project, in December of last year announced plans to exit the asset, which comprises upstream resource assets in the Liard and Horn River basins, the 471-km Pacific Trail Pipeline, and a natural gas liquefaction facility at Bish Cove near Kitimat.
The Kitimat liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant includes up to three LNG trains totalling 18-million tonnes a year, and is an all-electric plant powered by clean, renewable hydroelectricity from BC Hydro.
Woodside this week said that the asset remained a world-class project and added that the company would continue to actively evaluate future development opportunities, including the optimisation of gas supply into processing facilities.
However, Woodside noted that the impairment being recorded in the 2019 financial year reflected increased uncertainty, particularly in the timing of the development of the upstream Liard resource, following the sustained depressed gas market conditions in western Canada.