Oil companies Woodside, Shell and Conoco Phillips plan to pursue an ambitious project off Australia to build the world’s first production plant at sea to make liquefied natural gas, Woodside said. The A$6.6 billion project would be located 400 km from Darwin over the partners’ Greater Sunrise gas field between Australia and East Timor and provide LNG for Asian markets.The plan would break new ground for LNG, a super-cooled gas stored under pressure, but Woodside said it had no apprehensions about the technical viability of floating LNG plants. ‘‘A review has found floating LNG to be technically viable. There are no issues that would be of concern to us at the moment,’’ a Woodside spokesman said. Japan, South Korea and China are among markets being targeted by Woodside Petroleum Ltd, Royal Dutch/Shell and Conoco Phillips Petroleum.
