Oz LNG Shipments Up as it Eyes ‘World’s Largest Exporter’ Title

Australia’s LNG shipments rose 10% month-on-month in October to 6.4 million metric tons, boosted in part by the start-up of Inpex’s Ichthys LNG project, and the country’s annualised rates should overtake Qatar in the coming months, advisory firm EnergyQuest said November 15.

“As Ichthys ramps up production in coming months we expect Australia’s annualised production rate to overtake Qatar’s nominal capacity of 77mn mt/year, making [Australia] the world’s biggest exporter,” EnergyQuest chief executive Graeme Bethune said.

The Darwin-based Ichthys’ first LNG cargo departed October 22, which was followed by two further cargoes, EnergyQuest said.

“Latest reports are for a further three Ichthys cargoes to load in November from the Darwin plant to be sold on the spot market,” Bethune added.

He said that the October increase was also aided by strong performance by the west coast projects, while east coast shipments were slightly below those in September, following the agreement by the east coast gas producers to offer uncontracted gas to the domestic market in the event of any shortfall.

Meanwhile, Bethune said that after passing Japan in April this year as the world’s largest importer of natural gas (comprising both LNG and international pipeline gas), China’s LNG imports are growing quickly, with September imports up 26% on a year earlier.

“Australia continues to be the largest LNG supplier to China, supplying 43% of Chinese LNG imports in September,” he said.

“Notwithstanding strong Chinese demand, Chinese LNG imports from the US have slumped, from 0.5mn mt in January to only 0.1mn mt in September,” he said.

“This reflects the China-US trade war, plus record LNG shipping costs, particularly charter rates, which disadvantage longer distance transport,” he said.