In the company's third quarter results conference call last night, chief executive officer Frank Chapman said the company had made good progress with the project, with work moving ahead towards sanction in 2010.
"Good progress towards sanction is being made, with more than 150 wells drilled this year, tendering underway for the pipeline material and construction contracts, and front-end engineering and design for the upstream facilities and LNG plant progressing to plan," he said.
In August, the company released the project's environmental impact statement for public consultation and is expecting a decision from the Queensland and Australian government authorities next year.
QCLNG will use coal seam gas as feedstock to produce 7.5 million tonnes per annum of LNG under the first phase of development.
The project will expand the CSG production of BG subsidiary Queensland Gas Company in the Surat Basin, and transport the gas via a 380-kilometre underground pipeline to an LNG plant and export facility on Curtis Island, near Gladstone.
A final investment decision for the project which has a total planned capacity of up to 12 million tonnes per annum of LNG is expected in 2010.
Meanwhile, the company reported its capital investment in Australia for the quarter totalled £55 million ($A100 million) while the company's total operating profit dropped 38% from the same period last year to £856 million ($A1.559 billion) due to a 41% drop in oil prices and a 62% drop in Henry Hub gas prices.
Net income in the third quarter dropped to £484 million ($A882 million) from £857 million a year earlier.
In exploration and production, total operating profit for the quarter was £435 million ($A793 million) as higher production volumes and the favourable effect of a stronger US dollar partially offset the lower oil and gas prices.
Production for the quarter was up 5% on the third quarter of 2008 at 56.6 million barrels of oil equivalent. However, this was about 2MMboe below the company's exceptions for the quarter due to the delayed start-up of the Hasdrubal facility in Tunisia.
"These results demonstrate once again the strength of BG Group's integrated gas business and this, together with current production levels around 700,000 barrels per day, up 12 per cent on fourth quarter 2008, provides us with confidence in the outlook for the group's performance," Chapman said.
"BG Group has assembled an array of material, long-life projects, and we are now entering a period where we can look forward to these projects driving exceptional growth to the end of the next decade."
The company also announced that for the 2010 financial year, it will change the currency in which it reports its financial results to the US dollar.
