Japan's largest oil and gas exploration and production company Inpex Corporation has submitted a revised plan of development (POD) for the Abadi LNG Project, a gas field on the remote Masela Block in the Arafura Sea off Indonesia.
The revised POD is based on an onshore LNG development scheme with an annual LNG production capacity of 9.5 million tons. The Project involves developing the Abadi gas field in the Masela Block located in the Arafura Sea in Indonesia.
The submission of the revised POD follows a series of dialogues between the authorities and Inpex, as the operator of the project on behalf of the Joint Venture (Inpex Masela and Shell Upstream Overseas) to secure the Project’s competitiveness through a Heads of Agreement (HOA) signed with authorities on June 16, 2019.
In April 2016, the authorities instructed Inpex to resubmit a POD for the Project, based on an onshore LNG development scheme.
The terms contained in the HOA with the authorities including cost estimation, Production Sharing Contract (PSC) period and financial conditions are also written in the revised POD.
“The submission of the revised POD for an onshore LNG development scheme based on the Heads of Agreement signed on June 16, 2019 is a major milestone for the Project. INPEX anticipates that the revised POD will be approved at an early stage, after which the company will work in partnership with Shell toward reaching FID and ultimately commencing production, with the cooperation of the Government of Indonesia,” said Shunichiro Sugaya, President of Inpex Masela, Ltd.
The revised POD incorporates the results of Pre-Front End Engineering Design (Pre-FEED) work conducted between March and October 2018.
In addition to submitting the revised POD, Inpex, in partnership with Shell have filed an application to amend the PSC for the Masela Block. This amendment accommodates the additional seven years’ time allocation to the PSC term due to the time spent studying the previously proposed development scheme.