Origin Energy has marked a major milestone in the development of its $24.7 billion Australia Pacific LNG project on Queensland’s Curtis Island, starting up the first of seven gas turbine power generators.

While the majority of the natural gas arriving at the LNG facility will be processed and exported as LNG, a small amount will be used to power the gas turbine generators to generate the electrical power required to operate the two LNG processing trains.

APLNG chief executive Page Maxson said the successful start-up of the first turbine followed on from the completion of the pipeline and first gas arriving at the LNG facility earlier this year.

“The complexity and scale of this accomplishment is significant and required the completion of key safety and operating systems,” he said.

“Over the coming months, we will progressively test and start additional critical elements of the processing trains to bring the LNG facility on line and be ready for first LNG export.”

Each of the seven gas turbine generators, constructed by Bechtel, will produce a peak output of approximately 15 megawatts and will deliver 105 MW combined.

Bechtel Gladstone general manager Kevin Berg said the Bechtel team was progressively completing the commissioning work on the remaining components of the first train and, in parallel, constructing and commissioning the second train.

The project is now heading into the final stages of the construction phase in preparation to deliver first LNG in mid-2015.

APLNG is a joint venture between Origin (37.5 per cent), ConocoPhillips (37.5 per cent) and Sinopec (25 per cent).

The first two gas production trains comprising APLNG will have the capacity to process up to 9 mtpa of gas.

Lauren Barrett can be reached at lbarrett@hartenergy.com

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