Woodside Petroleum Ltd admitted a rise on the cost of its Pluto Foundation LNG Project and a bit delay on the commencement of the facility's production activity.

Woodside said on its Monday statement that the Pluto project cost would jump by 6.9 percent to $14 billion, coming from the earlier estimate of $13.1 billion, which the energy firm was largely caused by the replacement of the site's flare towers.

The company said that the cost upgrade and the schedule change were mostly due to "the failure of the projects flare tower contractor to take into account the specified wind loading requirement of the flare towers."

Following some fixes attempted by Woodside's Pluto contractor, the erratic flare towers would be replaced but not without additional costs and delays, which the company assured would not impact the project's production outlook.

The Pluto project is projected to be operational by August next year and a month after that, Woodside said that the first batch of liquefied natural gas (LNG) output should be realised, which should range from five to nine million barrels of oil equivalent (MMBOE).

The company said that it is gunning for an output of between 70 to 75 MMBOE in 2010 while its underlying production goal for 2011 is from 63 to 66 MMBOE, already inclusive of its production share in the Pluto LNG project permit.

On the other hand, Woodside said that its Browse project is progressing according to previously set budget and timeframe, with the project's site design already completed.

The company said that the Browse project should be able to commence front-end engineering design (FEED) by the start of 2011 and a final investment decision should be taken by the second half of the following year, still in line with the project's retention lease guidelines.

Also, Woodside said that the projected LNG production of the North West Shelf is showing signs of reaching a record level this year, with the project site currently producing approximately 730,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (BOEPD), from which the company derives its share of 150,000 BOEPD.

To further boost that output, Woodside revealed that three new exploration wells are scheduled to be drilled in the North West Shelf permits by next year.