Sydney Morning Herald: Queensland LNG Plants Beating Expectations on Production

Queensland's new LNG plants are performing "fantastically well" and are easily beating the industry's typical standards for early operations, according to the head of LNG at the private US company that built them.

Alasdair Cathcart, general manager, LNG, oil, gas & chemicals at Bechtel, said the four LNG trains operating so far at the three projects were running about 10 per cent above their rated capacity.

Plant reliability had been "north of 90 per cent, probably north of 95 per cent", well above the 75 per cent typical for new LNG trains in their first 12 months, Glasgow-born Mr Cathcart said.

Both LNG trains at the Queensland Curtis venture are in operation, with one each at Santos' GLNG venture and Origin Energy's Australia Pacific LNG venture. The second train at GLNG is in final commissioning ahead of start-up, with the second APLNG train to follow later this year, heralding the end of a six-year construction journey for Bechtel, which is aiming to have wrapped up on the island by the year-end. MORE