Woodside $1.5 bln Angel gas platform installed

KARRATHA, Australia (Reuters) - Woodside Petroleum Ltd, operator of the North West Shelf liquefied natural gas (LNG) venture in Australia, said it has completed the installation of a A$1.6 billion (752 million pound) gas platform which will underpin an expansion of the LNG project.

Woodside (WPL.AX) said on Sunday that it was in the process of commissioning the Angel gas platform, located off Western Australia, and that it was on track to start up a fifth LNG production train at the North West Shelf by the fourth quarter of this year.

"The Angel platform was completed on time and below budget," Woodside spokeswoman Kirsten Stoney told reporters.

Woodside said the processing topside for Angel, which weighs 7,500 tonnes, was manufactured in Batam, Indonesia by Malaysian Marine Heavy Engineering Sdn Bhd.

The A$20 billion North West Shelf development, Australia's largest LNG project, has a current production capacity of 11.9 million tonnes a year. The fifth train expansion is expected to boost output by a further 4.4 million tonnes a year.

The North West Shelf venture, with total gas resources of 33 trillion cubic feet (tcf), in March approved a $4.6 billion investment in the North Rankin 2 gas project to extend the lift of the LNG facility.

The six equal partners in the North West Shelf joint venture are Woodside, BHP Billiton Plc/Ltd (BHP.AX)(BLT.L), Chevron (CVX.N), BP Plc (BP.L), Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L)(RDSb.L) and Japan Australia LNG (MiMi) Pty Ltd, which is a joint venture of Mitsubishi Corp (8058.T) and Mitsui and Co (8031.T).

(Reporting by Fayen Wong; Editing by Paul Bolding)