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* Aims to bring forward target date for Browse approval by ayear
* Project cost could be trimmed from $15 bln -CFO
* Browse is biggest undeveloped gas resource off NWAustralia
* CFO says appraisal of Myanmar gas project "encouraging"(Recasts on Browse project, adds CFO comment)
By Sonali Paul
MELBOURNE, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Woodside Petroleum Ltdon Thursday said it was aiming to bring forward thetarget date for approving the mammoth Browse gas project offnorthwest Australia by a year to 2020, with the $15 billion costestimate potentially being pared.
Woodside, operator and top stakeholder in Browse, expectsthe earlier final investment decision thanks to recent progresson technical contracts and commercial agreements for processinggas from the project, Woodside Chief Financial Officer SherryDuhe said on Thursday.
"It is something that technically we're quite confidentabout at this point. And the progress that we're making, inparticular on getting very imminently to sign the preliminaryagreements, is also supporting that as well," Duhe told Reuters.
Woodside is driving Browse and the $11 billion Scarboroughproject, also off northwestern Australia, looking to capitaliseon an LNG supply gap expected to open up in the early 2020s.
"It's really about us having the confidence to proceed andknowing that the market is there," Duhe said in an interviewafter the company released its quarterly production report.
Browse, the biggest undeveloped gas resource offnorthwestern Australia, has been stuck on the drawing board foryears as plans for onshore and floating LNG developmentsestimated at up to $45 billion were scrapped.
The development cost has been slashed as Browse will nowfeed the existing North West Shelf LNG plant, rather thanrequiring a new plant to be built. And contractors haveindicated there might be opportunities to trim the estimated $15billion cost of the project, Duhe said.
Royal Dutch Shell, BP and PetroChina, alongwith Japan's Mitsubishi Corp and Mitsui & Co,are Woodside's partners in Browse.
"BP supports developing the Browse resources as soon aspossible and is working hard with its JV partners to achievethat," a BP spokeswoman said.
However, a Mitsui spokesman said the joint venture had yetto agree on a 2020 target for a final decision.
Shell deferred to Woodside for comment, while Mitsubishi andPetrochina declined to comment.
Woodside, Australia's largest independent gas and oilproducer, reported a 25-percent jump in third-quarter revenue to$1.16 billion, underpinned by rising output at the WheatstoneLNG project, run by Chevron Corp, and higher oil and LNGprices.
Production for the quarter rose to 23.1 million barrels ofoil equivalent (mmboe) from 20.3 mmboe at the same time lastyear.
In Myanmar, Duhe said Woodside had obtained "encouraging"results from an appraisal of the Shwe Yee Htun gas find, but didnot set out timelines for further work on it.(Additional reporting by Aditya Soni in Bengaluru, OsamuTsukimori in Tokyo and Meng Meng in Beijing; Editing by RosalbaO'Brien and Joseph Radford)
