Natural Gas: Natural gas development is a significant contributor to our future growth plans. Demand for liquefied natural gas is expected to grow significantly over the long term, especially in Asia, and our project queue is geographically well-positioned to meet this projected demand. During the year we took significant steps in advancing development of two of our most critical projects: the giant Gorgon Project and the Wheatstone Project. Gorgon’s Train 1 startup is planned for the third quarter of 2015, with first LNG cargo anticipated in the fourth quarter of 2015. Startup of Wheatstone is expected in late 2016.
The combined planned total production from these projects is projected to peak in 2021 at 400,000 barrels of oil-equivalent per day. The scope of both projects is enormous, requiring seafloor pipelines, an offshore platform for Wheatstone, onshore liquefaction facilities and dedicated LNG tankers. Gorgon also will include the world’s largest commercial system to inject carbon dioxide into underground reservoirs. Overall, Gorgon and Wheatstone have generated approximately 17,000 direct and indirect jobs as a result of our investments.
We have a number of conventional natural gas fields that we are developing, including fields in the Gulf of Thailand and the Bibiyana Field in Bangladesh. During 2014 we began natural gas production from the Bibiyana Expansion Project. The project includes two gas processing trains, additional development wells and an enhanced liquids recovery facility and has an incremental design capacity of 300 million cubic feet of natural gas and 4,000 barrels of condensate per day. In North America we remain positive about the potential Kitimat LNG development in Canada.