Two contracts awarded for $200M gas project

A well drilling contractor and building material manufacturer have each been awarded a tender for a $200 million natural gas project in Queensland’s Surat Basin.

Easternwell and CSR have won contracts for Senex Energy’s Project Atlas near Miles, 210km west of Toowoomba.

Easternwell will be tasked with starting an initial natural gas drilling program from May 2019 to mid-2020 at the project and also Roma North. There is potential to extend the contract by up to a further 11 months through to May 2021.

The drilling company has already advertised job openings for experienced well servicing rig crew, a drilling derrickhand and drilling driller and/or assistant driller. These positions will be based throughout the Surat and Cooper basins.

“This contract puts in place one of the final major elements for the delivery of our Surat Basin natural gas projects,” Senex CEO Ian Davies said in a public statement.

The proponent has separately handed CSR a domestic gas sales contract for up to 3.25 petajoules (PJ) of natural gas, representing the first domestic gas deal from the project.

As part of the three-year agreement CSR will receive gas, supplied from the Wallumbilla Gas Hub in Queensland at a fixed price, in its three southeast Queensland manufacturing plants that manufacture PGH bricks, gyprock plasterboard and Bradford insulation from as early as 1 January 2020. The plants employ 260 people at Brendale, Coopers Plains and Oxley. There is potential to extend the deal by a further two years.

CSR has not listed any relevant job openings yet but they will be advertised on its careers website.

“This agreement with CSR follows the Queensland Government’s policy to support new supplies of natural gas into the domestic market and this is a great outcome for Queensland,” Davies said.

All required state and federal regulatory approvals have been granted for the project.

Senex previously partnered with major infrastructure provider Jemena to build, own and operate the project’s gas processing facility and associated pipeline spanning 622km.

FKG Group won the civil works contract and is already operating on this facility, which is expected to be commissioned in late 2019.