Chevron to sell Wheatstone equity, more LNG to TEPCO

PERTH, June 18 (Reuters) - Chevron Corp has signed a deal to supply additional liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Japan's Tokyo Electric Power Co., as well as an equity stake in the Wheatstone project in Australia, the U.S. oil major said on Monday.

TEPCO will purchase an additional 0.4 million tonnes per year (mtpa) of LNG from the Chevron-operated Wheatstone project for up to 20 years, adding to the 3.1 mtpa it had agreed to buy last year.

Chevron will also sell an 8 percent stake in the Wheatstone natural gas processing plant and a 10 percent interest in the Wheatstone gas field licences, which will bump TEPCO's total offtake of LNG from Wheatstone up to a total of 4.2 mtpa.

The U.S. oil firm did not give a financial value for the agreement.

The $29 billion Wheatstone LNG plant is located off the coast of Western Australia and is expected to start exporting gas in 2016.

Chevron plans to eventually expand the production of Wheatstone from the 8.9 mtpa under construction now to 25 mtpa.

Chevron is positioning itself to become one of the largest LNG producers in Australia. Its $37 billion Gorgon project, also off Western Australia, will produce 15 mtpa by 2014.

Chevron has offtake agreements with several other Japanese utilities including Tohoku Electric and Chubu Electric for 1 mtpa each and Kyushu Electric for 0.46 mtpa.

Chevron's other partners in the Wheatstone project are Apache Corporation, Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company (KUFPEC), Royal Dutch Shell and Kyushu Electric.

Australia is expected to surpass Qatar as the top LNG exporter by the end of the decade, when it would have quadrupled its current production of about 20 mtpa.