Santos' Bonaparte gas project on hold  

The BS reports that the Bonaparte LNG export project off Northern Australia may not follow Shell's floating LNG plant example after all - Santos' Bonaparte gas project on hold.

French energy giant GDF Suez says it is reconsidering a huge project for a floating gas liquefaction factory off northern Australia and might opt to build an undersea pipeline to Darwin. The gas fields concerned continue to have "material value", the company said on Thursday. But using a floating liquefaction plant to process the gas does not satisfy business criteria, the group said, in an important announcement for the Australian energy sector.

The overall project, called Bonaparte, involves an ambitious scheme using advanced technology to generate liquefied natural gas from resources off northern Australia. The development of floating liquefaction plants is at the forefront of efforts to turn Australia into a leading supplier of LNG in Asia.