SINGAPORE, Feb 26 - European oil and gas major Total SA expects to start gas and condensate production in Australia in 2015, a a company executive said on Thursday.
"The next breakthrough should be Australia since we already have development plans. So, the development should happen quite quickly in 2009 and 2010 and Australia is due to put into production in 2015," Bertrand Huillard, vice-president exploration and production for Asia and Far said.
He said that oil and gas production in Asia, mainly Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar and Brunei, were around 250,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2008, accounting for 11 percent of Total's worldwide oil and gas production.
"Over the coming two to three years, the percentage will be about the same as 10-11 percent", in the Asia-Pacific region, he told reporters on the sidelines of an upstream conference.
Total and Japan's largest oil and gas explorer Inpex Holdings Inc (1605.T) have proposed to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in Australia's northern city of Darwin which is estimated at more than $20 billion.
Inpex said last year that production at the facility, to be built in and around the city of Darwin in northwest Australia, may be delayed to 2014 or 2015. It had previously aimed to start output by first-half 2014.
Inpex has a 76 percent stake in the project, while Total owns the rest.
Asia Pacific will account for about 10 percent of Total's global capital expenditure of $18 billion this year, Huillard added.
"The next breakthrough should be Australia since we already have development plans. So, the development should happen quite quickly in 2009 and 2010 and Australia is due to put into production in 2015," Bertrand Huillard, vice-president exploration and production for Asia and Far said.
He said that oil and gas production in Asia, mainly Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar and Brunei, were around 250,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2008, accounting for 11 percent of Total's worldwide oil and gas production.
"Over the coming two to three years, the percentage will be about the same as 10-11 percent", in the Asia-Pacific region, he told reporters on the sidelines of an upstream conference.
Total and Japan's largest oil and gas explorer Inpex Holdings Inc (1605.T) have proposed to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in Australia's northern city of Darwin which is estimated at more than $20 billion.
Inpex said last year that production at the facility, to be built in and around the city of Darwin in northwest Australia, may be delayed to 2014 or 2015. It had previously aimed to start output by first-half 2014.
Inpex has a 76 percent stake in the project, while Total owns the rest.
Asia Pacific will account for about 10 percent of Total's global capital expenditure of $18 billion this year, Huillard added.
