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PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Australian oil and gas major Santos has extended its gas processing agreement with ASX-listed Beach Energy and Senex Energy.
The gas processing agreement extensions are expected to result in the production of up to 18 TJ of sales gas per day, or 20 PJ over the three-year term.
The gas to be produced under these agreements is equivalent to more than 1% of total east coast domestic gas demand as forecast by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), Santos said on Thursday.
“These processing agreements demonstrate the benefits of the Santos strategy to leverage our existing infrastructure to facilitate more gas supply and more competition in the east coast domestic gas market as well as continuing to build our Queensland production for both domestic customers and our liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports from Gladstone,” said Santos executive VP for midstream infrastructure, Naomi James.
She noted that the gas processing agreement extensions reaffirmed the strategic importance of the Santos-operated Moomba gas plant in facilitating access to the east coast domestic gas market for other producers in the Cooper basin to increase gas supply and competition, which is the best way to put downward pressure on gas prices for customers.
The agreement extensions will allow raw gas from Beach’s western flank of the Cooper basin and gas from Senex’s Vanessa project to be processed to sales gas quality.
The Santos-operated Moomba gas facilities in South Australia’s Cooper basin are a critical hub in eastern Australia’s gas processing and transportation network, connecting supply from multiple producers in Queensland and South Australia to southern domestic gas markets.
Santos supplied about 70 PJ of natural gas to the east coast domestic market in 2018, which was almost 13% of the ACCC’s expected demand.