A consortium comprising GHD and Delco Australia has been selected to carry out the FEED study.

Subject to a satisfactory outcome and all necessary regulatory approvals, GHD and Delco will be instructed to proceed with full material procurement and construction of the Lacerta gas plant.

Managing director Tony Gilby said the recent capital raising had allowed the company to quickly advance plans to have Lacerta into production and meet domestic demand while progressing its export liquefied natural gas strategy.

"We are pleased to have been able to appoint these two highly-credentialled firms to undertake the FEED study and, if all goes to plan, we expect to have the field in production and generating cash for the company in second quarter next year," he said.

Phase One of Lacerta's field development includes the construction of a 30 petajoule per annum gas processing and dehydration plant, a 8PJ per annum compression capacity and a further 40 production wells at an estimated total cost of $67 million.

Additional compression units will be built into the plant as the field output grows.

Funding has been secured for Phase I development through a combination of the recent $44 million capital raising and proceeds from the sale of the company's offshore United Kingdom oil assets which increased available cash to almost $90 million.

On completion of Phase II involving another major drilling campaign, the Lacerta Gas Field will ultimately supply feed gas to the proposed Sunshine/Sojitz LNG project in Gladstone.