This morning's HoA with China Huadian Green Energy is framed around the delivery of up to one million tonnes of LNG per annum over 10 years from 2020.
Once the HoA is converted to a firm agreement, Chevron will have sold over 80% of its equity gas from the two greenfield LNG developments, leaving plenty of scope for further contracts to be negotiated or take advantage of a forecast recovery in the spot market in the early 2020s.
"This is an important step in the commercialisation of Chevron's natural gas holdings in Australia and the establishment of our global liquefied natural gas portfolio," Chevron Gas and Midstream executive vice president Pierre Breber said.
"As Chevron continues to grow into one of the world's largest LNG suppliers, this agreement represents further progress and diversification of our sales portfolio."
Chevron Australia managing director Roy Krzywosinski said he looked forward to building lasting relationships with our customers in the region as the Chevron-operated Gorgon and Wheatstone projects move into operations
"The China Huadian agreement demonstrates Chevron's equity gas from Australia is well-placed to meet the growing demand for natural gas in the Asia-Pacific region."
China Huadian is one of the largest state-owned power generation companies and has a leading role in gas-fired power generation in China.
The 15.6MMtpa Gorgon project on Barrow Island is a joint venture of Chevron (47.3%), ExxonMobil (25%), Shell (25%), Osaka Gas (1.25%), Tokyo Gas (1%) and Chubu Electric Power (0.417%).
The $US54 billion project is officially 90% complete, although that figure was announced in August. First gas was targeted for the end of 2015, but is likely to have slipped into 2016.
Wheatstone is being developed on the mainland, near Onslow, and will produce an estimated 8.9MMtpa.
The project is officially more than 65% complete and is targeting the first LNG cargo by year-end 2016, although the company admits there are schedule pressures it is working to overcome.
Wheatstone is owned by Chevron (64.14%), Kufpec (13.4%), Woodside Petroleum (13%), and Kyushu Electric Power Company (1.46%), together with PE Wheatstone, part owned by Tokyo Electric (8%).
