Chevron is seeking buyers for a portion of domestic gas from its huge Gorgon liquefied natural gas (LNG) development on Barrow Island, Western Australia.
Chevron Australia managing director Roy Krzywosinski told a conference in Darwin on Tuesday that the energy giant was inviting expressions of interest for up to 150 terrajoules per day of domestic gas from Gorgon, starting in 2015.
Patersons oil and gas analyst Scott Simpson said this amount was equal to about five per cent of Gorgon's expected output.
Hartleys oil and gas analyst David Wall said WA's major industrial domestic gas consumers, including Alcoa of Australia Ltd and Burrup Fertilisers Pty Ltd, were most likely to buy the gas.
The companies were among the most hampered when a pipeline exploded at Apache Energy Ltd's Varanus Island gas processing plant near Barrow Island in June last year, slashing the state's domestic gas supply by a third.
Apache said last week that the plant had been restored to more than 90 per cent of pre-incident production rates.
"Varanus Island has highlighted the need for redundancy in the state's gas supply," Mr Wall said.
The 15 million tonne-a-year Gorgon development has been tipped by analysts to cost about $US25 billion ($A30.8 billion), making it Australia's largest resources project.
The project will draw 22 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas from the Gorgon and Jansz gas fields, with two tcf reserved for WA's domestic gas market while the remainder is destined for export to Asia.
Mr Krzywosinski said that he expected final project sanctions for Gorgon would be forthcoming in a few months.
"As the project moves towards its final environmental approval, the Gorgon joint venture participants are poised to make a final investment decision in the coming months," he said.