US energy giant ExxonMobil Corp and partner BHP Billiton Ltd on Friday approved their A$1.4 billion ($1.35 billion) Turrum oil and gas project off Australia's south-east coast to meet rising domestic demand. The Turrum development holds reserves of about 1 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas and about 110 million barrels of oil and condensate, ExxonMobil, the world's largest oil company, said in a statement.
First oil and condensate production from Turrum was expected to begin in 2011 at about 20,000 barrels per day (bpd), while total gas sales would commence in 2015 at about approximately 200 million cubic feet (mcf) per day, Exxon said.
The Turrum project, located in the Bass Strait off the southern coast of Australia, is the second oil and gas project committed to by the Exxon-BHP partnership in the past seven months, following the decision last December to proceed with the A$1.4 billion Kipper gas project also in Bass Strait.