Australian June LNG Exports at 3.6 Mt

Australian LNG exports in June were 3.6 million tonne (mt), up 18.5 percent on May 2016 exports, according to EnergyQuest’s Monthly LNG Report.

“The strong growth in June exports reflects a full month of production from the Woodside-operated North West Shelf, which underwent planned maintenance in May, together with particularly strong performance from Woodside’s Pluto project and Shell’s QCLNG project in Gladstone,” said EnergyQuest CEO Graeme Bethune.

Despite low oil and LNG prices, Australia’s six LNG projects all maintained high levels of production in June, in many cases above nameplate capacity, he said, adding that further growth in LNG exports is expected over the next six months as the second trains of the GLNG and APLNG projects come into production and the Chevron-operated Gorgon project begins to ramp-up.

Remarkable Queensland achievement

Queensland, which exported 1.4 mt (22 cargoes) in June, is catching up with Western Australia, which exported 1.8 Mt (27 cargoes) in June. “The growth in Queensland exports is quite remarkable given that its first LNG project only started exporting 18 months ago,” said Bethune.

The Northern Territory exported 0.3 mt of LNG (5 cargoes) from the Darwin LNG project in June. Northern Territory exports will start growing from late next year when the INPEX Ichthys project starts production.

Australian cargo to Egypt

EnergyQuest estimates that forty-four cargoes were delivered from Australian projects in June, mostly to traditional north Asian customers (22 to Japan, 15 to China, 2 to Korea and 1 to Taiwan) but there were also 2 cargoes each to India and to Egypt.

Australian domestic gas markets

Short-term east coast gas prices spiked in June reflecting cold weather in the south and ramp-up of LNG projects in the north. LNG netbacks were below domestic gas prices. However, the three LNG projects continued to operate at high levels, consuming 87 petajoules (PJ) of conventional and coal seam gas during the month.

The Gorgon domestic gas plant is not yet producing.