OREANDA-NEWS. The Australian federal government and the state of Western Australia (WA) have agreed on the share of revenues from permits covering the Torosa gas field, which forms part of the Browse floating LNG (FLNG) project in the Browse basin operated by domestic independent Woodside Petroleum.

Torosa straddles retention lease areas that come under the jurisdiction of both Canberra and WA because of Scotts Reef, which is above the sea surface so comes under the jurisdiction of WA.

The agreement represents an allocation, which includes natural gas, condensate and other liquids in the Torosa field, between the Australian government, which will have a 34.6pc share and the state of WA with 65.4pc, said WA's minister for mines and petroleum Bill Marmion.

Woodside is likely to seek approval for up to three floating vessels at Browse with total capacity of 11.7mn t/yr. Total resources, which comprise the Brecknock, Calliance and Torosa fields, are 14.9 trillion ft? (422bn m?) of gas and 441.2mn bl of condensate.

Canberra earlier this month renewed the five retention leases covering the Browse FLNG project, with Woodside and its Browse partners giving the go-ahead to start initial engineering and design work on the project. Shell, BP, Chinese state-controlled oil firm PetroChina and Japanese trading firms Mitsubishi and Mitsui are also partners in Browse.

Woodside and the WA government last month agreed for Browse to supply gas to the domestic market from Torosa. Woodside is likely to supply gas under this agreement through a gas swap with the 16.3mn t/yr North West Shelf LNG venture in the Carnarvon basin offshore WA, rather than build a pipeline from Torosa to the coast.