April 2011 Vol. 238 No. 4

Projects

Arrow Energy Announces Pipeline Plans For Australian LNG Facility

Arrow Energy announced plans for a major pipeline to connect its operations in the Bowen Basin in central Queensland, to a LNG facility at Curtis Island, off Gladstone, Australia.

The pipeline is part of the Arrow LNG Project to bring coal seam gas (CSG) from both the Bowen Basin and the Surat Basin in the state’s south-east to Gladstone where it would be cooled and liquefied for shipping to international markets.

Arrow plans to submit an environmental impact statement for the pipeline to the Queensland Government by early 2012. The diameter and capacity of the pipeline, as well as a timeline for selecting its contractors and suppliers, is yet to be finalized.

Arrow already has a license to build the Arrow Surat Pipeline – formerly known as the Surat–Gladstone Pipeline and the Surat–Gas Pipeline Header – which will pipe gas from Kogan North to Curtis Island.
The Project involves the planning, construction and commissioning of a 660 mm diameter buried high-pressure steel gas transmission pipeline. which will deliver coal seam gas.

Once completed, the pipeline will deliver (CSG) from the Surat Basin near Dalby in south-eastern Queensland, to a proposed LNG plant in Gladstone.

The chosen preliminary pipeline route heads generally north from the Kogan area through the local government areas of Dalby, Banana, North Burnett and Gladstone. The route continues to the west of the Barakula State Forest to the north of Chinchilla and avoids environmentally sensitive areas, such as essential habitats, endangered and threatened ecosystems and communities, and remnant (native) vegetation wherever possible.

From a point east of Callide, the route heads north-east and follows the Queensland natural gas pipeline for the remaining 64 km into Gladstone.

The Premier of Western Australia announced that the State will be developing the Callide Infrastructure Corridor (CIC), a 200 meter wide common infrastructure corridor to contain a number of gas pipelines from the Callide area into Gladstone. The final 23-km of the route is within the Gladstone State Development Area (GSDA) Infrastructure Corridor.

It is anticipated that construction of the pipeline will start in 2015/16, with first gas supplied two to three years after that.