Australia Browse firms pick plant site, end dispute

PERTH Feb 9 (Reuters) - The gas process plant for Australia's Browse liquefied natural gas project will be built at James Price Point in western Australia, operator Woodside Petroleum (WPL.AX) said on Tuesday, ending a long dispute among the project's partners.

The decision in favour of Woodside's preferred location advances the project towards the engineering phase and ends an impasse that even forced government intervention.

Perth-based Woodside, Australia's second-largest oil and gas producer, said the next phase of the development will be basis of design, followed by front-end engineering and design in 2011 to enable a final investment decision by mid-2012.

Woodside owns 50 percent of Browse, which is estimated to hold about 15 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas. BP (BP.L) and Chevron (CVX.N) have 16.67 percent each, while Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) and BHP Billiton (BHP.AX)(BLT.L) each have 8.33 percent.

Frustrated by a lack of progress on the project, the federal and Western Australian state governments had imposed a deadline for the partners to select a development concept by April 2010 as a condition of retaining leases associated with the Browse field. (Reporting by Fayen Wong; Editing by Balazs Koranyi)