Investment in Australia’s northern offshore petroleum plays is on the rise largely due to the commitments to exploration, field development, liquefied natural gas production and carbon capture and storage by Santos and Inpex.

The area's two major operators have presented their growth ambitions for the region with the Northern Territory capital Darwin as the hub, given it hosts their producing LNG plants.

Santos operates the Darwin LNG facility, and Japan's Inpex is the operator of the mighty Ichthys LNG project.