Stating what percentage of the projects' LNG volumes are committed to off-take agreements at any one time is not an exact science, as agreements start and finish at different times.
The one Chevron announced this morning - a non-binding heads of agreement with ENN LNG Trading Company - will see ENN receive up to 500,000 tonnes per annum of LNG over 10 years once deliveries start either in 2018 or the first half of 2019.
That's on top of other agreements, the latest of which was the HOA Chevron signed with China Huadian Green Energy, which will receive up to 1MMtpa of LNG over 10 years starting in 2020.
With a capacity of 15.6MMtpa from three processing units, Gorgon is a joint venture of the Australian subsidiaries of Chevron (47.3%), ExxonMobil (25%) and Royal Dutch Shell (25%), along with offtake partners Osaka Gas (1.25%), Tokyo Gas (1%) and Chubu Electric Power (0.417%).
Chevron midstream and development executive vice president Mike Wirth said the deal was another step in the development of the California-headquartered US super-major's Australian gas business and its global LNG portfolio.
The $54 billion Gorgon project is Chevron's biggest project globally.
ENN LNG Trading Company Limited is a subsidiary of ENN Energy Holdings, one of the largest natural gas distribution companies in China which operates in 146 cities across 17 provinces and autonomous regions, with over 11.3 million residential and 52 thousand industrial/commercial customers.
ENN's Zhoushan LNG receiving terminal is being constructed and expected to be in operation by 2018.
The initial capacity of the Wheatstone LNG and domestic gas operation near Onslow in Western Australia's Pilbara region is expected to be 8.9MMtpa of LNG.
Gorgon is a key platform to help leverage Chevron into becoming one of the world's largest LNG suppliers, but faces stiff competition from Gorgon JV partner Shell which has made no secret of its goal to become an LNG powerhouse with its proposed acquisition of UK rival BG Group, which operates the Queensland Curtis LNG mega-project in Queensland.
First gas is expected from Gorgon in the current quarter.
Chevron chairman and CEO John Watson said in the corporation's 2015 Q3 earnings call update that the Janzs-Io field subsea infrastructure was fully complete, and the company had opened the first two wells to the Jansz pipeline, confirming the full operability of those subsea systems.
"Just in terms of what we're expecting, I indicated that Gorgon will see first cargo in the first quarter [of 2016]."
