Japan’s largest exploration and production company, Inpex, said on Monday that it had started producing gas at the Ichthys liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, which has cost US$40 billion and has faced delays in its development. Inpex, the operator of the project with a 62.245-percent operating interest, expects first shipment of products from the project toward the end of the first half of its current fiscal year—April to September. The produced gas will be gathered within the Central Processing Facility (Ichthys Explorer) where it will be separated into gases and liquids. Then the liquids will be piped to the nearby Floating Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) facility—Ichthys Venturer—while the gases will be transported via the 890-kilometer (553-mile) long Gas Export Pipeline (GEP) to the onshore gas liquefaction plant at Darwin in Australia’s Northern Territory. Around 70 percent of the LNG from the Ichthys project will be bound for Japan— […]