Inpex Australia's new president director Hitoshi Okawa is relishing the opportunity to build the Australian business on the back of the mighty Ichthys liquefied natural gas and condensate project.

Okawa is no stranger to Australia — he smiles and says he “feels part-Aussie”, given he established Inpex’s Perth office in November 1998 and has lived there ever since, apart from a three-and-a-half year period following the completion in 2002 of the first Ichthys drilling campaign.