Since the failure of the Timor Sea stakeholders to reach legal and financial agreement, Woodside has switched focus from the Greater Sunrise field to an LNG facility to develop the Scott Reef and Brecknock gas fields in the Browse Basin.

The company starts a three-well appraisal program in the coming weeks to firm up the estimated 20 trillion cubic feet of gas contained in the fields.

Derby’s extreme tidal and current flow would have posed significant technical hurdles to any development, which led Woodside to look further down the coast to several potential sites north of Broome.

Early design configurations for the Browse LNG plant revolve around two, 7 million tonne per annum processing trains.

While the Broome port has a served as a supply base for drilling and other exploration activities, the scale of any LNG development will require the greenfields construction of all infrastructure, including port, shipping facilities and gas storage facilities.

A Woodside spokesman was quoted as saying site selection was in a very early stage and only informal discussions had been held with stakeholder groups.