Brisbane-based QGC said on Friday that the 618 terajoules of gas production was nearly 25% above the 500TJ forecast sales for both May and June.

QGC managing director Richard Cottee said the performance was even more impressive, given that gas production only began on May 8 and that the contracted commencement of gas delivery had not been scheduled to start until the end of July.

He said gas sales were increasing rapidly as production at the Berwyndale South gas field continued to climb.

Over the last week, QGC had delivered sales gas at the rate of 17TJ per day, which constituted an annual rate of 6.2 petajoules per annum – the contractual sales position that QGC had set itself to reach by next October.

This gas sales delivery rate had been achieved was before the official start date of either the CS Energy contract or the Braemar Power Station contract.

Cottee said the high level of gas sales had been due to foundation customer CS Energy being faced with a gas supply shortfall at Swanbank and seeking additional gas from QGC to make up the deficit; and that QGC had started gas sales to Braemar Power Station on June 22, about three months ahead of schedule.

The high level of gas production at Berwyndale South was being maintained, with current production exceeding the 6PJpa rate.

QGC last week said it now had 10 wells flowing gas at more than 1 million cubic feet per day at Berwyndale South.

“The gas production is coming from high-production, low-cost wells that in many cases don’t even require pumping. This translates into a highly profitable operation,” Cottee noted.

He said the exceptional production performance from Berwyndale South was achieved after only eight weeks of production, and demonstrated the thoroughness of the commissioning process at the gas field and the world-class quality of the gas reserve base at Berwyndale South.

QGC is operator and majority owner (90%) of Berwyndale South, together with partner Sentient Gas Australia (10%). The field is QGC’s first commercial CSM operation and is located close to Chinchilla in southern Queensland.