Leighton Holdings subsidiaries John Holland and Thiess have been awarded $300 million worth of contracts for the Chevron-operated Wheatstone liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in Western Australia.

John Holland will design and build a package of 12 permanent buildings for the $US29-billion worth Wheatstone LNG project, whileThiess will build a 1.2-km undersea tunnel connecting two offshore gas reserves with an LNG plant.

In a statement, John Holland said the 12 permanent buildings include an operations building, laboratory, fire station, vehicle maintenance shop, plant warehouse and maintenance centre.

The project expects to create about 340 direct jobs.

Earlier this month, John Holland also won the $370 million contract to build the Wheatstone village.

Meanwhile, Thiess said the 1.2km undersea tunnel will connect two offshore gas reserves with the Ashburton North-based LNG plant.

The micro-tunnel will be 2.5 metres in diameter to accommodate a 1.1-metre diameter pipeline that will deliver gas from the Wheatstone and Iago reserves.

But Thiess said that while engineering work will commence immediately, construction on the site will have to wait until after the 2013 cyclone season.

Construction on the Wheatstone project's foundation phase have already started earlier this month. It included two LNG trains with a combined capacity of 8.9 million tonnes per annum plus a domestic gas plant.

Chevron controls 73.6 per cent of the Wheatstone LNG project. Its joint venture partners include Apache with 13 per cent, Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company with 7 per cent and Shell, 6.4 per cent.

First LNG shipments are planned for 2016.

Read more:

Rising Domestic Use May Prompt Indonesia LNG Exports to Fall

China's Imports of LNG Will Grow 30% in 2012: Mirae

November LNG Imports of S. Korea Down by 34.5%