Start-up activities at the Gorgon LNG project off Western Australia are now underway, with first LNG production expected in "the coming weeks," a spokesman for project operator Chevron said Wednesday.
A technical hitch on April 4 forced exports from the facility to be temporarily suspended just one month after the $54 billion project began operations.
Mechanical issues with the propane refrigerant circuit on Train 1 at the Gorgon plant site forced the suspension.
"We confirm start-up activities are underway on Gorgon Train 1 with a plan to safely resume production in the coming weeks," the Chevron spokesman said.
It had been expected that Gorgon would resume operations 60-90 days after the shutdown.
The startup of Gorgon LNG was hailed as a major milestone for the Australian LNG sector and for Chevron, so the glitch could be considered a significant setback.
It follows a technical problem in April 2014 that hit Chevron at its Angola LNG facility, which has since remained offline.
Gorgon is Australia's largest-ever resource development, but costs have ballooned since the final investment decision in 2009.
Gorgon was expected to cost $37 billion and start up in 2014, but the project suffered significant construction and weather delays, which blew out the budget and delayed the schedule.
The project's three-train, 15.6 million mt/year liquefaction facilities on Barrow Island are fed with gas from the Gorgon and Jansz-Io gas fields, which lie 80 miles (130 km) and 136 miles off the coast, respectively.
Gorgon's second and third LNG production trains are expected to start up at six-month intervals.
Chevron's interest in Gorgon is 47.3%. Its partners in the project are ExxonMobil and Shell with 25% each, and Japanese customers Osaka Gas (1.25%), Tokyo Gas (1%) and Chubu Electric Power (0.417%).
