Australia's Gorgon LNG Train 1 shut due to gas leak

The 5.2 million mt/year Gorgon LNG Train 1 on Barrow Island in Western Australia has been shut temporarily after "a minor gas leak" was detected at the facility Nov. 16, a Chevron spokesperson said Nov. 17.

"As a precautionary measure, Train 1 was shut down in a controlled manner to isolate the area where the leak was identified. We are preparing plans for investigation and repair," the spokesperson said.

The leak was detected in piping associated with the dehydration unit on the train during a routine inspection.

The unit, which removes water from the gas stream as part of the LNG conversion process, will need to be depressurized, according to sources. There are a number of steps involved in the process of assessing the issues, which make estimating the duration of the outage difficult, the sources said.

Gorgon's LNG production trains 2 and 3 remain operational. The three equal sized trains give Gorgon a total nameplate capacity of 15.6 million mt/year.

Chevron's Wheatstone LNG trains 1 and 2 in Western Australia also continue to operate as usual.

Gorgon is operated by Chevron as a joint venture between the Australian subsidiaries of Chevron, which own 47.3% of the project, ExxonMobil with 25%, Shell 25%, Osaka Gas 1.25%, Tokyo Gas 1% and JERA 0.417%.