The gas is in Train 1 on Curtis Island, Queensland, and is considered a major milestone in the start-up process.

Since January, Santos has progressively started production at all its major processing facilities in its gas fields, commissioned the 420km pipeline and all of the LNG facility power generation and other utilities, unloaded the refrigerants that will chill the gas and tested all six refrigeration compressors

Over the coming weeks Santos will start up Train 1’s front end pre-treatment units before chilling down the refrigeration units to make the LNG.

“GLNG is progressing extremely well,” Santos managing director David Knox said.

“Our upstream facilities are fully operational and we are in the final stages of commissioning on Curtis Island.

“As we continue to hit our key milestones, we know exactly what remains to be done and we’re focused on safely delivering GLNG on time and on budget.

“GLNG will be an important addition to our growing LNG portfolio.

“Santos’ two other LNG projects in PNG and Darwin continue to deliver excellent results and the three projects combined will ultimately deliver to Santos over three million tonnes of LNG per annum – 10 times the quantity we sold in 2013.”