Billion dollar gas platform for Bass Strait
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The Exxon Mobile oil platform, Beryl Alpha, located in the North Sea, (File) (www.flickr.com: danrandom, file photo)
A large new oil and gas field in Bass Strait will be tapped, in a $1.4 billion project.
ExxonMobil subsidiary Esso and BHP Billiton will develop the Turrum Field, which involved building a new platform next to an existing one off the Gippsland Coast.
The development will extract one trillion cubic feet of gas and 110 million barrels of oil.
The ExxonMobil Australia Chairman Mark Nolan says that is enough energy to power a city of one million people for 20 years.
"Gippsland is the largest gas source for the long term projects coming up in eastern Australia," he said.
The companies say 100 construction jobs will be created and 1,000 ongoing jobs.
The oil and gas will be processed at Longford with oil expected to start flowing in 2011.
Mr Nolan says the development will provide electricity for all of eastern Australia.
"Bass Strait has a great past and a very exciting future," he said.
"It (the project) will add significantly to the security of supply to the energy in the whole eastern coast of Australia.
The Federal Energy and Resources Minister, Martin Ferguson, is anticipating even more development in Bass Strait.
"Turrum is just the start of what I hope will be a new generation of oil and gas developments," he said.
Mr Nolan, says growing demand for natural gas has prompted the development.
"Our forecasts and indeed the forecasts of external agencies and governments predict that the growth in gas in Australia will remain very strong, an average of 3.8 per cent per annum out to 2030," he said.
"ExxonMobil alone has experienced unprecedented levels interest in our gas, particularly in Gippsland."
Construction will start next year.
