Perth-based Clean Energy Fuels Australia has secured a long-term site lease for its planned LNG production hub in Western Australia.
The site is located in WA’s Mid-West region near the town of Mount Magnet, about 300 kilometres east of Geraldton.
CEFA says its LNG project is currently under assessment by the WA Planning Commission as a “significant development” in the new State Government planning pathway to support economic recovery from Covid-19.
Subject to approval, the small-scale LNG developer plans to start building the plant later this year.
LNG for remote power plants
The new plant will form part of the Mid-West LNG hub, which has a total cost of more than A$100 milion ($73.4m).
The hub will supply LNG as fuel to generate electricity for mines and remote communities across the region, providing an alternative to diesel with reduced energy costs and lower emissions, CEFA said.
The company is also working on solutions to displace diesel consumed in heavy mine haul vehicles with LNG.
CEFA selected Mount Magnet for its first WA-based LNG hub due to several advantages.
These include the location’s transport links, existing access to gas pipeline infrastructure, and proximity to remote power customers.
Furthermore, the firm is supported by US-based infrastructure fund I Squared Capital to deliver the hub. It has already secured access to natural gas and pipeline transport capacity.
Additionally, CEFA worked with a US-based specialist to design and engineer the modular LNG process plant.
The hub will include the first liquefaction train, LNG transport tankers, customer storage, and regasification facilities.
The LNG facility’s modular design will enable CEFA to add more LNG trains over time.
The firm estimates that over 25 years of operation, the first LNG train at the hub could displace around 3 billion litres of imported diesel with domestically-sourced natural gas.
This means reducing customers’ CO2 emissions by over 2 million tonnes, according to CEFA.
CEFA Managing Director, Romano Bernhard, said: “It is great to see the Mid-West LNG Hub coming to life.”
“Our recent execution of the site lease is a great milestone for the project and it keeps us on track to deliver LNG to our customers in the second quarter of 2021,” he added.