The 160-tonne per day plant will be the key generating fuel source for the company’s West Kimberley Power Project that includes construction of power stations in Broome, Derby, Fitzroy Crossing and Halls Creek due to be brought on stream in stages during 2007.

Although it will be dwarfed by the Woodside-led North West Shelf participants’ LNG facilities a few kilometres away on the Burrup Peninsula, EDL’s plant will have similar elements in its design, including liquefaction via an aluminium plate heat exchanger and a system of air cooling.

But there will be some differences in approach. For instance, EDL will use six cylindrical 325kl storage tanks mounted horizontally rather than the Burrup’s large domed-roof, concrete-lined in-ground storage facilities.

The West Kimberley Power Project (WKPP) tanks will have stainless steel inner surfaces and carbon steel outers and operate like large thermos flasks keeping gas in the liquid state through vacuum insulation.

The LNG plant will comprise up to 30 skid-mounted components brought in as individual modules and connected together on the Western Australian Government’s new Maitland Industrial Estate just south of Karratha.

The main process units are being fabricated in Texas where Chart Industries has the contract for the liquefier ‘cold box’ and Cooper Industries will be assembling the refrigeration compressor unit.

The highly specialized cryogenic storage tanks for the plant as well as for the road trains that will transport the LNG to the individual power stations will be made by Chart Industries in China, said EDL managing director Chris Laurie.

“The WKPP reflects Energy Development’s capability to deliver innovative and cost-effective energy solutions in remote regions,” Laurie said.

“Interest in LNG as a replacement for diesel in large mining and transport operations is now being evaluated by a number of companies as the cost of oil keeps rising and the focus on environmental issues increases.”

EDL will have four triple-tanker road trains to move LNG from Karratha to the various power stations. Each triple will carry 74 tonnes of LNG. The longest haul will be a return trip of two days for the journey to Halls Creek. Broome will be the shortest trip at 16 hours return.

LNG storage capacity at each power station will vary. Broome will be the largest with just on 2 million litres (six tanks of 325kl each). Derby will have three 200kl tanks, while Halls Creek and Fitzroy Crossing will have two 200kl capacity tanks on site.

EDL’s 20-year Power Purchase Agreement with Western Power Corporation for the West Kimberley Power Project was declared unconditional last month.

At the same time EDL also executed final documentation for a limited recourse project construction loan facility of up to $180 million to fund the total project cost including power stations and LNG facilities. Finance is being provided by a consortium of ABN AMRO, ANZ Investment Bank and National Australia Bank.

The Karratha LNG plant is scheduled to begin commissioning at the end of 2006 and commence commercial operations during January 2007. It will be the fourth mini-LNG plant to be located in Australia after one at Dandenong in Victoria, another at Kwinana in Western Australia and another at Alice Springs in the Northern Territory (although the Alice Springs plant is now being dismantled and will be moved to a new location overseas).

The West Kimberley power stations will come on line beginning with Broome in March/April 2007 and followed by Derby in May 2007, Fitzroy Crossing in June 2007 and Halls Creek in July 2007.

A fifth power station in the project – a diesel-fuelled plant at Looma – will begin operation in April 2007.

The total initial generating capacity for the project is 61MW, but it is anticipated this will be expanded to a total of 92MW over 20 years. There is likely to be a corresponding increase in capacity of the Karratha LNG plant during this period.

Although EDL has signed a contract with Apache Energy and Santos to obtain its natural gas feedstock from the offshore John Brookes field, the actual gas molecules will come from the Woodside group’s North West Shelf fields.

This is because the new EDL plant’s offtake spur line will connect to the main Dampier-Bunbury trunk to the north of the connection from Apache group’s Varanus Island treatment facilities.

The Woodside and Apache groups will use a sales gas swap arrangement to fulfill the EDL contract.