Therefore - having a new "onshore" source of potentially trillions of cubic feet more natural gas - only 600 km. south of the new LNG processing facility would be a very smart addition for both Inpex and Total. This may be the deal that works best for Falcon and fits right into Total and Inpex's long term goals - as they are already investing over $35 billion into the Ichthys LNG project. If Inpex and Total are in the running to develop the Beetaloo, then spending another couple of $billion at this point to potentially more than double their gas reserves for this huge Ichthys project makes good sense. This would also help explain why it is taking a fairly long time to get a new JV in place for the Beetaloo - as the Ichthys project has multiple partners involved.

On a cautionary note: Total already has a JV in progress with Central Petroleum to develop Central's properties in the South Georgina Basin. However, the Beetaloo Basin is much farther along in the seismic and test well stages and is less than half the distance to Darwin. Inpex is the majority owner of the Ichthy's project at 66% and is not involved in the Central Petroleum project either, which makes the Beetaloo much more attractive for Inpex as well.