INPEX Corporation (国際石油開発帝石株式会社) (literally, INternational PEtroleum EXploration Corporation; hence the short name INPEX) is a Japanese oil company established in 1966 as North Sumatra Offshore Petroleum Exploration Co., Ltd. In 2006, INPEX acquired Japanese oil company Teikoku Oil.

INPEX created a venture company called INPEX Browse, Ltd on 1 September 1998. This was for a previously wholly owned INPEX project in the offshore Basin off the north west coast of Western Australia where a gas-field was discovered in the WA-285-P permit area. The official name of the proposed development project will be the Ichthys (gas-field) Development, which the company wanted to base on the Maret Islands. After farming out 24% of the permit ownership to Total S.A's subsidiary Total E&P Australia the concept and location was changed.

The location of this project, and the issue of industrialising the Kimberley coast is under discussion in Australia. Environmentalists and local ecotourism operators are concerned about industrial infrastructure destroying the pristine nature of this coast line.

The original project consisted of an offshore Central Processing Facilities (CPF), supplying two phase gas to an onshore facility on the Maret Islands. The facilities on the Maret Islands were to include gas receiving, LNG process plant (2 x 3.8Mtpa trains), product storage and export facilities. Maret Islands are located approximately 200 km south-east of the lchthys Field, which is approx. 440 km north of Broome and 800 km south west of Darwin.

The project for the LNG plant to be located on the isolated Maret Islands was scrapped with the LNG Plant now to be built at Blaydin Point industrial site which is located on the Middle Arm Peninsula in Darwin, Northern Territory, with a 889 kilometres (552 mi) pipeline from the lchthys Field to the LNG Plant, after regulatory delays in Western Australia.

The Ichthys Project's Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) was completed in April 2011. Final Investment Decision (FID) was announced on 13 January 2012. The EPC early works phase, such as commencement of site development, infrastructure works and accommodation village will beginn within the second quarter of 2012. LNG Production in the magnitude of app. 8.4mtpa is expected to be online by fourth quarter of 2016.

Abadi
In November 2008, INPEX acquired a 100% participating interest in the Masela Block in Indonesia. Gas was discovered in 2000 when the Abadi-1 exploratory well was drilled. This marked the first discovery of crude oil and natural gas in the Arafura Sea in Indonesia.

A development plan was submitted to the Indonesian government and subsequently approved. Preparatory measures for Front-End Engineering Design, set to begin in the first half of 2012 are currently in process.

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