Offshore staff

PERTH, Australia -- Chevron Corp. has made a significant gas discovery at Iago field off western Australia, which could help expand its nearby Wheatstone LNG project.

Gas discoveries at the Iago-2 well, a previously untested reservoir, showed a flow rate of 53 MMcf/d (1.5 MMcm/d), according to reports from the area. The well is in relatively shallow water location close to Wheatstone field.

In March 2008, Chevron announced plans to develop a 5-million-metric ton/year (5.5-million-ton/year) LNG export facility to be supplied from Wheatstone, which has about 4.5 tcf (127 bcm) of gas.

"We continue to progress a multi-train Wheatstone LNG and domestic gas development with a view to entering the front-end engineering and design phase next year for a green field mainland gas facility," says Roy Krzywosinski, managing director of Chevron Australia.

Chevron is also operator of the Gorgon LNG venture in west Australia, in which Royal Dutch Shell Plc and ExxonMobil Corp. each have a 25% stake.

07/10/2008