Inpex has reported that Ichthys Venturer, its floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) has begun sailing towards Australian waters where it will be put at work for the Japanese company’s $34bn Ichthys LNG Project.

The FPSO had sailed away from South Korean waters following the completion of commissioning and preparation work and after about a month it will reach the destination in the Browse Basin.

Ichthys Venturer will be moored in 250m deep waters permanently, about 220 kilometres off the north coast of Western Australia.

The 336m long offshore facility will be hooked up and commissioned in the Browse Basin alongside the Ichthys Explorer central processing facility (CPF) which will be built about 3.5km away.

Ichthys Venturer FPSO will be used for processing and storing the condensate coming from the CPF. It will later offload the processed condensate to export carrier vessels on a periodical basis.

Inpex Ichthys project managing director Louis Bon said: “The Ichthys Venturer has been designed to withstand cyclonic conditions and is one of the largest and most advanced offshore facilities of its kind in the world.

“Ichthys Venturer has a storage capacity of 1.12 million barrels of condensate and will have a continuous operating life of 40 years, setting new benchmarks for durability.”

Last month, Inpex had moored the Ichthys Explorer CPF in the Ichthys Field. With a weight of 120,000 tonnes and with a topsides footprint of 130m x 120m, the Ichthys Explorer is being claimed by the Japanese firm to be the largest semi-submersible platform in the world.

The Ichthys LNG Project is a joint venture of the field operator Inpex with Total, CPC Corporation Taiwan and subsidiaries of Tokyo Gas, Kansai Electric Power, Osaka Gas, JERA and Toho Gas in Australia.

Once developed, the Ichthys LNG Project is expected to have an annual production of 8.9 million tonnes of LNG, 1.6 million tonnes of LPG along with a daily production of over 100,000 barrels of condensate.


Image: Inpex’s FPSO Ichthys Venturer. Photo: courtesy of INPEX.