Daily gas sales from the field have in the last week reached the contracted 4 petajoule rate (11 million cubic feet per day) two and a half months ahead of the July 31 deadline, according to QGC.

“Initial quantities of commissioning gas were delivered to CS Energy on May 6 and had been expected to build up to the full rate in June,” managing director Richard Cottee said.

“However, commissioning activities were so well progressed that the full contract rate was achieved in the second complete week of commercial supply.”

Berwyndale South is QGC’s first gas field development and the CS Energy contract is its first commercial supply agreement.

Currently, there are 24 wells on production at Berwyndale South, with half of these flowing at more than 500,000 cfd.

QGC is operator and majority owner of the project, with a 90% interest. Sentient Gas Australia holds the remaining stake.

The JV has an unconditional gas sales agreement with CS Energy to supply 4 PJ of gas a year for the next 10 years to the generator’s Swanbank E Power Station, near Ipswich in southeast Queensland.

The CS Energy agreement is the first of three unconditional 10-year contracts for QGC to supply coal seam gas from the Surat Basin. QGC is contracted to supply another 4 PJ of gas a year from Berwyndale South to the Braemar Power Station starting in October, and 7.4 PJ a year to Incitec Pivot between July and September 2007 from the Argyle East gas field, in which QGC holds a 59.37% stake.

The contracts total a minimum of 15.4 PJ a year over 10 years, with options to increase to 22.1 PJ a year. QGC’s equity share of the contracts is for a minimum of 11.6 PJ a year with options to increase to 17.3 PJ a year.