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Chevron Australia announced the resumption of full production in an emailed statement on Thursday.
The company said on March 29 that the restart of the two-train Wheatstone LNG plant is likely to take a “number of weeks” before production returns to full rates due to damaged equipment following the powerful tropical cyclone in Western Australia.
Earlier this month, Chevron Australia announced that the LNG plant was operating at 50 percent capacity after one of Wheatstone’s two LNG production trains began operating at full rates, while work on repairing fin fans at the other train coninued.
“Extreme winds associated with the cyclone damaged several hundred air cooled heat exchangers, known as fin fans, making the repair program a significant undertaking,” Chevron Australia’s director of operations and maintenance Danny Woodall, said.
“Safety remained our highest priority throughout the response and recovery. Our teams took the time to fully assess the damage, plan logistics, and complete the repairs as quickly as possible, while ensuring the plant was ready to restart safely and reliably,” he said.
“We were able to restart domestic gas production for Western Australian customers in around a week after the cyclone, with LNG returning progressively,” Woodall said.
The foundation Wheastone project consists of two LNG trains with a combined capacity of 8.9 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) and the domestic gas plant.
The project was sanctioned in late 2011, with first shipment of LNG announced in October 2017.
Last year, the Chevron-operated LNG plant shipped its 1000th cargo.
Chevron operates the project with a 64.14 stake. Other shareholders include KUFPEC (13.4 percent), Woodside (13 percent), and Kyushu Electric (1.46 percent), together with PE Wheatstone, part-owned by Jera (8 percent).
In December 2024, Chevron and Australian LNG player Woodside agreed to an asset swap under which Woodside will exit the Wheatstone LNG project and Chevron will sell its stake in the NWS project.