Ichthys central processing facility sails away from South Korea

Inpex Corporation informed on Friday that the Ichthys Explorer, the Inpex-operated Ichthys LNG Project’s central processing facility (CPF), sailed away from its construction site in Geoje, South Korea en route to the Ichthys field offshore Western Australia. 

The unit sailed away following the completion of shipyard commissioning and preparation work.

According to Inpex’s statement on Friday, the Ichthys Explorer will be towed to the Ichthys field over a period of approximately one and a half months, after which it is scheduled to undergo hook-up. The facility will then separate and process the produce lifted from subsea production wells into gases and liquids over 40 years of continuous operation.

The Ichthys Venturer, the project’s floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) facility, is also scheduled to be towed to the Ichthys field and undergo hook-up. Inpex and its partners will also continue to proceed with construction work on the onshore natural gas liquefaction plant outside of Darwin in the Northern Territory of Australia.

Both units were named at in South Korea’s shipyards in February. The facilities will be permanently moored for 40 years of operation in the Ichthys field, in the Timor Sea about 220 kilometers off the Western Australian coast.

Inpex added that, following the arrival of the CPF (Ichthys Explorer) and the FPSO (Ichthys Venturer), installation and commissioning work will be undertaken and production from the wellhead will start.

Thereafter, the Ichthys LNG Project will, during the current fiscal year, ending March 31, 2018, begin production of condensate, liquefied natural gas (LNG) and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) in sequence and then ship these products.

Gas will undergo initial processing on the CPF to extract condensate and water, and remove impurities in order to make the gas suitable for transmission. Most condensate will be transferred from the CPF to the nearby FPSO for offshore processing, with the remainder sent to Darwin with the gas via the Project’s 890 kilometer gas export pipeline.