The plant, near Port Campbell in the state’s west, will process all the gas from the $A200 million field and will provide about 120 terajoules of gas per day.

TRUenergy said Casino was the fastest gas-to-market project in Victoria’s history, due to the early signing of an initial sales agreement with project partners Santos and Australian Worldwide Exploration in September 2003.

“The unparalleled speed at which we have delivered this project has also been enhanced by our partners’ decision to use our existing processing facilities,” TRUenergy managing director Richard McIndoe said.

The Casino gas field, which is the first commercial development in VIC/P44, is in about 70m of water, 30km offshore from Port Campbell.

The partners said the project’s gas development and transport facilities were specifically designed to minimise environmental and visual impact.

Under the initial 12-year contract, up to 420 petajoules of gas will be transported from the subsea wellheads through a sea-floor pipeline that comes ashore via a directionally-drilled underground shore crossing, for processing at the Iona gas plant.

Santos and AWE announced last month they planned to develop the adjacent Henry gas field, discovered last July. Accelerated exploration drilling activity in adjacent prospects is also planned for this year, subject to drill rig availability.

Participants in VIC P/44 are Santos (operator with a 50% stake), Peedamullah Petroleum (wholly owned subsidiary of AWE – 25%), and Mittwell Energy Resources (wholly owned subsidiary of Mitsui – 25%).