An oil and gas exploration company says its found an onshore oil flow on the Gippsland coastline near Seaspray in south-east Victoria.

The executive chairman of Lakes Oil, Rob Annells, says the discovery was made during exploratory drilling works in the area.

He says the find is geologically significant, and could herald the first onshore oil flow in the Gippsland Basin.

Mr Annells says it is possible the field could be deeper than offshore sites, and the company will start further explorations immediately.

“Which is pretty much the same as what’s been recovered offshore, but the difference is that it’s much lower in the section, so it’s not a surprise to us, but we are surprised that it’s flowing, rather than sitting there dead in the bottom of the hole, it’s actually flowing into the hole,” he said.

Leading Australian agribusiness, ABB Grain Ltd has received development approval to build a 110,000 tonne capacity malt house and grains container packing facility in Minto, Sydney.

Michael Iwaniw, Managing director of ABB Grain, said the company has acquired land for the $90 million development on the Hudson site which was previously part of the Macarthur Intermodal Shipping Terminal group (MIST) site.

The malt house and packing facility will be built for the company’s subsidiaries Joe White Maltings Ltd and Professional Grain Services Ltd to meet burgeoning growth in Asia.

The company has signed a long-term agreement for logistics services and grain delivery to be provided by Macarthur Intermodal Shipping Terminal Group (MIST) and related company Independent Railroads of Australia.

ABB’s site is adjacent to the main southern railway line into the port of Sydney.

Mr Iwaniw said the company plans to transport the grain by rail which would take 20,000 trucks off New South Wales roads.

Work on the malt house and packing facility is due to commence in July with the malt house expected to start receiving barley for malting in early 2011.

The Queensland Government has declared Shell’s coal seam gas-to-liquefied natural gas (CSG to LNG) project on Curtis Island “Significant” allowing Shell to submit an environmental impact statement.

Shell announced they will begin to prepare the statement to develop the project further, with plans to produce first gas from its terminal at Gladstone by 2015.

The project is expected to produce up to 16 million tonne of LNG a year, involving phased construction of up to four LNG processing `trains’, with CSG drawn from acreage jointly owned by Shell and Arrow Energy Ltd in south east and central Qld.

During peak construction, it is estimated that up to 3000 people would be employed at the plant.

In 2009, Shell acquired 30 per cent of Arrow Energy’s CSG resources, providing potential supply for LNG production. Though there have been concerns that it does not have access to adequate gas reserves to feed a large-scale LNG plant.

State One Stockbroking Ltd industry analyst Peter Kopetz told reporters that Arrow was a potential takeover target for Shell as it seeks to secure more CSG resources to underpin its LNG ambitions.

Arrow has an option to acquire a 20 per cent stake in a potentially competing CSG-to-LNG joint venture project at Gladstone, dubbed Fisherman’s Landing.

Maurice Brand, managing director of LNG Ltd, which has a 40 per cent stake in the Fisherman’s Landing project, told reporters it was “two to three years ahead” of other CSG-to-LNG projects in the Gladstone area.

Other companies proposing to develop CSG-to-LNG projects in the region include Britain’s BG Group, Origin Energy Ltd, ConocoPhillips, Santos Ltd and Malaysia’s Petronas.

First exports from Fisherman’s Landing are expected in late 2012 but resources sector consulting group Wood Mackenzie recently said in a report that the BG-operated Queensland Curtis project was the most advanced, with several milestones met.

The Queensland Department of Environment says millions of megalitres of floodwater has been recorded in Western Queensland this year, 30 times the volume of Sydney Harbour.

Downpours in January and February caused massive flooding in the Gulf and north-west river systems, flowing into the state’s south-west and then into South Australia’s Lake Eyre.

Department spokesman Peter Gordon says officers were able to measure flows from boats traversing the floodwaters.

“The recorders have logged a total of 17 million megalitres through all the different systems. That includes the Georgina, the Diamantina, [and] the Thomson,” he said.

“Sydney Harbour is about 562,000 megalitres, so when you are talking 17 million megalitres, it is quite significant.”

Mr Gordon says while they were not record floods, they were still significant.

“We only measure at gauging stations fairly high up in the system … and by the time it goes through all the floodplains, a lot of water is soaked up,” he said.

“It basically replenishes all the grasses out in that country … [and] by the time it goes over the border, a lot of it is lost.

“So when we say 17 million megalitres goes past our gauging stations … it does not mean necessarily 17 million megalitres goes into Lake Eyre.”

Fluoride will be added to Coffs Harbour’s water supply tomorrow.

In 2004 the Department of Health ordered that fluoride be added, however the council wanted to wait until the new water filtration plant was up and running.

That plant was officially opened yesterday at Karangi.

From tomorrow all homes connected to the town water supply on the coastal strip from Sawtell to Corindi will start to receive fluoridated water.

It will take one to two weeks for the affected water to extend throughout the entire supply system.

Coramba and Nana Glen water users will not receive fluoridated water as they are not on the town water supply system.

Mining giant Rio Tinto has scrapped its proposed $US19.5 billion ($24.3 billion) transaction with Chinese company Chinalco in favour of a $US15.2 billion ($19 billion) equity raising and an iron ore joint venture with rival BHP Billiton.

5/06/2009 - Santos Ltd says they are in discussions with an Asian customer regarding the purchase of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from its project at Gladstone, Queensland.

“While there is no guarantee that an agreement will be concluded, the discussions are progressing well and there is the prospect that a final agreement will be reached in the near future,” the statement was made on Thursday by Australia’s third largest oil and gas producer.

A joint venture project with Malaysia’s Petronas, with an expected start rate of 3 million to 4 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa), expandable to 10Mtpa.

Three other major coal seam gas to LNG projects planned for the Gladstone region, led by BG Group, Origin Energy and Arrow Energy.

Santos also said marketing was progressing well for the remaining volumes of LNG from the ExxonMobil-led Papua New Guinea joint venture following a non-binding heads of agreement for LNG offtake with a major Asian customer.

“Santos expects further heads of agreements for LNG offtake will be announced in accordance with previous guidance,” the company said.

Construction of this project is expected to commence in early 2010.

A MULTI-BILLION dollar liquefied natural gas plant is set to be developed in WA’s Kimberley region after a landmark deal between Aborigines, government and business.
Woodside, Australia’s second-biggest oil and gas producer, has agreed terms with the State of Western Australia and the Kimberley Land Council, to develop a LNG Precinct at James Price Point, north of Broome.
Indigenous land owners in Western Australia’s Kimberley region gave in-principal approval this week for the LNG processing hub to be developed in return for compensation worth more than $1 billion over 30 years.
The compensation package would create economic opportunities for Aborigines in the area and would include health and education programs as well as environmental and heritage protection.
Premier Colin Barnett said the decision to allow the gas hub on land at James Price Point would benefit the local indigenous population now that they had given approval for the project. “It will allow for security for them over freehold land over significant areas, and it will allow an opportunity to achieve an economic independence and self-determination,”
Woodside hopes to build the large coastal LNG plant, estimated to cost as much as AUD30 billion, in the environmentally sensitive area to liquefy natural gas pumped from the Browse Basin, 200 kilometres (124 miles) off the coast.
Woodside has today announced on their website they plan to execute a Heads of Agreement in the coming days, and will do so on the basis that the Kimberley LNG Precinct is its preferred site for the processing of LNG from the Browse Basin gas fields.

The Heads of Agreement will outline commitments for all the parties involved, and significant financial and other benefits for Indigenous people in the Kimberley.
 
Woodside signed a A$35 billion deal with PetroChina in 2007 to sell up to 3 million tonnes of LNG a year from Browse over 15 to 20 years.
The Browse Basin holds reserves of more than 50 trillion cubic feet, or a third of Australia’s known offshore gas.

A joint venture comprising of Al Habtoor Leighton (40%), Murray & Roberts (40%) and Takenaka (20%) has withdrawn from a $2 billion project in Dubai.
The Al Habtoor – Murray & Roberts – Takenaka Joint Venture (HMRT) and the Dubai Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) have mutually agreed that the Joint Venture will pull out of the contract to build the Dubai Airport Concourse 3due to the parties’ failing to conclude an acceptable contract.

The joint venture was awarded the contract, worth $800 million to Leighton, in December 2008, and has up until now been working with the DCA to finalise contract terms.

The Concourse 3 project followed the joint venture’s successful delivery of the recently opened Terminal 3 and Concourse 2 project.
The outcome was “disappointing” a spokesperson for the JV said, but it was “in the best interests of both parties that the joint venture withdraw from the project”.
The withdrawal from the project would not have any material impact on the Al Habtoor Leighton group’s 2009 results, the company has reported on its website.
Leighton Holdings chief executive Wal King recently admitted to CBNC television that Dubai’s construction boom had come to an end.
“There is no doubt that the huge construction boom in Dubai has come to an end, but there is still work activity and I think this philosophy that the Middle East is all over is not a true philosophy,” he said in an interview with CNBC Television earlier this month.
“There is a strong future in that region where we have a big construction company.”
Leighton has a 45% stake in Al Habtoor.

FORTESCUE Metals Group did not mislead investors about binding agreements with Chinese parties because investors knew that its Pilbara iron ore project was in its infancy, a court has heard.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has alleged Fortescue engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct by overstating the nature of deals with three state-owned Chinese companies in 2004.

The deals turned out to be “framework” agreements requiring further negotiation, but a commercial outcome was never reached.

On the second day of a five-week hearing in Perth’s Federal Court, John Karkar, QC, for Fortescue, said the corporate watchdog had failed to take into account the context in which Fortescue made the statements.

Mr Karkar said it was common knowledge the framework deals would be supplemented with further agreements.

This was because media reports and analyst research - issued prior to the announcements in question - had described Fortescue’s project as being in the early stages with many milestones ahead.

Mr Karkar, citing several media reports, said the common investor would have taken the commentary into account.

“In short … the media thought the announcements were light on detail,” he said.

“We would submit the common investor with knowledge of the facts would understand that plans for the project were in their infancy and that Fortescue’s achievements had hitherto been preliminary.

“That is the context in which the announcement about binding … contracts were made.

“We say, in the end, having regard to what happened, investors were not misled.”

Mr Karkar said if necessary Fortescue could demonstrate the contracts to build and finance various parts of the project’s infrastructure were binding.

He said the seven per cent jump in Fortescue’s share price that followed the August 23, 2004 announcement were not “statistically significant”.