Apache Corp., the US oil and gas company operating on five continents, and Santos plan to build an $800 million natural gas project in Western Australia to benefit from rising prices for the fuel. The partners have approved the Devil Creek project, which will tap gas from the offshore Reindeer field for supply to customers in Western Australia, Tim Wall, managing director of Apache's Australian unit, said in an interview. The project may start up in 2010, Apache says on a Web site on the project. Santos and Houston-based Apache are set to benefit from an increase in natural gas prices in Western Australia, where discoveries are increasingly developed for exports as liquefied natural gas rather than for the local market. Devil Creek will produce about 200 million cubic feet a day of gas, or about a fifth of the existing Western Australian market. ''It's an exciting time for us,'' Wall said late yesterday in an interview in Perth, Western Australia. The project will have a life of 20 to 30 years, according to the Web site. Contract gas prices in Western Australia have tripled to more than $7 a gigajoule from about $2, closely-held Latent Petroleum said in January. Santos, Australia's third-biggest oil and gas producer, said in August it and Apache started design work to develop the Reindeer field and hasn't announced approval for the project. Christian Bennett, a spokesman for Adelaide-based Santos, wasn't able to comment on Devil Creek late yesterday. Third Plant The Devil Creek plant will be built about 45 kilometers southwest of Dampier in northwestern Australia and will supply gas into the Dampier Bunbury pipeline, which takes fuel from Australia's offshore fields off the northwest coast to customers in the southwest. The plant, which will also produce between 160,000 and 800,000 litres of gas condensate a day, will be the third major project supplying gas into the Western Australian market. Apache and Santos have yet to announce customers for Reindeer gas. The US company said in December it had received 23 expressions of interest to a tender for supply of the fuel. Apache and Santos separately made a gas discovery north of their East Spar gas and condensates field, also off the northwest coast. The Halyard find may hold about 100 billion cubic feet of gas and may be produced through East Spar for the local market, Wall said. Apache's board may in September approve another Australian project, the development of discoveries in the Julimar and Brunello area, which may hold between 2 trillion and 4 trillion cubic feet of gas, Wall said. The fields lie to the northeast of Chevron's Gorgon field and to the south of Woodside Petroleum's Pluto field. Woodside, Chevron The gas may be produced for the local market through Devil Creek, while Apache is also in talks with other companies on the possible supply of gas for liquefied natural gas ventures, Wall said. Woodside is considering using third-party gas for an expansion of its Pluto LNG project, while Chevron said last month it may take gas from other companies to process through its proposed Wheatstone project. ''We've approached everybody,'' Wall said in the interview. Apache may decide within the next two months how best to develop the fields in the Brunello-Julimar area, he said. Apache as 65% of the fields and is the operator, while Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Co. owns 35%. Apache is also developing the Van Gogh oil project off Australia's northwest and is a partner in the BHP Billiton- operated Pyrenees oil project. The project may add 70,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day of production for Apache by 2011, compared with 2007 output in Australia of 46,000 barrels a day.