Chevron has kicked off the multi-billion-dollar sale of its one-sixth stake in Australia's largest producing oil and gas project, the North West Shelf.

Chevron made an eight-point pitch to potential buyers this week, putting out a detailed sale flyer to Australia's big superannuation and infrastructure funds, global sovereign wealth funds, oil and gas companies and other sources of the estimated $US3 billion to $US3.5 billion ($4.2 billion to $4.9 billion) sales.

The pitch describes the North West Shelf project as one of the world's “premier” LNG facilities, having attracted in $34 billion in capital investment in the past, and generated $5.5 billion in pre-tax cash flows last year.

It says NWS is in discussions with third-party resource owners to fill near-term capacity at its Karratha Gas Plant, which is connected to offshore gas fields via two subsea trunk lines.

Chevron and UBS also claimed the following NWS statistics: 16.9 million metric tonne per annum LNG production capacity, 1.6 billion barrels in 2P reserves, five LNG trains and a 30-year production history with more than 5000 LNG cargoes sent to customers since 1989.

Some insiders expect Australia's Woodside Petroleum, which operates the project and has a similar-sized one-sixth stake, is the most likely buyer so far.