Glng gladstone lng facility

A LNG (liquefied natural gas) export facility is currently being constructed in Central Queensland at Gladstone. It is known as the Gladstone LNG Plant, or GLNG. The facility is being built by Santos Limited with a 30 percent shareholding, PETRONAS ( Petroliam Nasional Berhad) with a 27.5 shareholding and KOGAS with a 15 percent shareholding. The plant is being built to make use of the coal seam gas resource located in the Comet Ridge and Roma region of Queensland.

The Gladstone LNG facility will exploit coal seam gas fields located in areas such as Taroom, Injune, Emerald and Roma by bringing their production to the Gladstone facility by means of a 135 kilometre long gas transmission pipeline.

Gladstone LNG Facility to be Constructed in Three Stages

When complete the Gladstone LNG facility on Curtis Island, will be capable of supplying 10 million tonnes of LNG for the export market every year. The work needed to get to that stage of development requires the construction of considerable infrastructure, dredging for a deep water port, marine facilities, a bridge and an access road. The works is being carried out in three stages with the first stage allowing for the production of between three and four million tonnes of LNG a year.

Final Modules Installed in Gladstone LNG's two Processing Trains

The final shipment of modules required for the completion of the Gladstone LNG's processing trains arrived at the site last September. Over the previous 30 odd months a total of 111 modules had been assembled in the Philippines before being shipped to the Gladstone LNG site on Curtis Island to be installed in the two natural gas liquefaction processing trains being built at the facility.

Bechtel is Gladstone LNG's Principal Construction Contractor

Giant international construction company Bechtel is the principal contracting company responsible for delivering the modules with the assistance of about 3,500 workers employed by both Bechtel and Santos Gladstone LNG. The workers worked a total of 15 million man hours to assemble the modules in the Phillipines and have them delivered to the Gladstone LNG facility on Curtis Island. The final module shipment consisted of two 2,500 tonne propane chiller modules. These were the widest and heaviest to be assembled by Bechtel. The modules contained seventy percent of the Gladstone LNG plant's structural steel requirements,sixty percent of its piping needs and forty percent of the facilities overall construction requirements.

Gladstone LNG's First Shipment due in 2015

Gladstone LNG is planning to have its first shipment of LNG leave its Curtis Island plant in 2015. To this end the recent commissioning of natural gas being fed into its 420 kilometre gas pipeline from the compressor station on the Fairview field in south west Queensland was an important milestone in the development of the Queensland LNG industry generally. This pipeline alone, when fully operational, will have the capacity to carry up to 40 million cubic metres of natural gas a day from the gas fields to the Gladstone LNG Plant.

When the gas reaches the Gladstone LNG facility on Curtis Island it will be cooled to a temperature of minus 161 degrees Celsius. This will allow the liquefied gas to be transported as LNG to the company's overseas customers. The building of the pipeline to bring the gas to the Gladstone plant began in 2012. To date it has cost over six million hours of work with more than 36,000 welding segment taking place on the 250,000 tonnes of 1.05 metre diameter pipes. The pipeline has been constructed by Saipem Australia.