MEO Australia said yesterday that the government had concluded that the Timor Sea developments were unlikely to require assistance with the secondary level state and federal government approvals, so the MPF status will not be renewed when it expires at the end of the year.
It's a blow for the long-gestating project, which has been unable to secure the gas needed to underpin the development of a gas treatment plant on a concrete-gravity structure, on top of a shallow water shoal in the Timor Sea.
The Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development has encouraged the company to re-apply for MPF services once the projects reaches a stage where secondary level approvals are required.
The primary approvals that MEO relies on for the Tassie Shoal Projects are under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, and they will remain in place until 2052.
MEO managing director Peter Stickland said despite the government's decision the value proposition of the Tassie Shoal projects remain unchanged.
"MEO continues its dialogue with all stakeholders to seek to commercialise the Tassie Shoal projects and thus add value to the region's stranded high CO2 gas resources," he said.
MEO recently quit the Blackwood and Heron gas fields, declaring they were too small to support the Tassie Shoal projects, but the company continues to talk with the owners of the Evans Shoal field (Shell 32.5%, Eni 32.5%, Petronas 25% and Osaka Gas 10%) and others, which have the high CO2 fields needed to make methanol.
While Evans Shoal is immediately adjacent to Tassie Shoal, the nearby Barossa and Caldita are also possible sources of high CO2 gas.
Letters of intent have been secured from prospective methanol off-takers, who remain interested, but earlier this year Stickland told Energy News that the company needed to be patient in its efforts to develop Tassie Shoal.
For each methanol train, feedgas of 200 million cubic feet per day is required, depending upon CO2 content, to enable the production of 5000 tonnes of methanol per day or 1.75MMtpa.
The MPF status was last renewed in 2012.
