Bechtel Completes Australia LNG Program with APLNG T2 Startup

Bechtel concluded its six-year Curtis Island LNG program, with Australia Pacific LNG (APLNG) starting sustained production from the second train.  

The company has now delivered all six LNG production trains to three customers – QGC, Santos GLNG, and APLNG – on Curtis Island, off the shore of Queensland, just north of the city of Gladstone. On October 10, Origin announced that APLNG has produced the maiden LNG cargo from the second of its two 4.5mn mt/yr production trains.

The three facilities have the combined capacity to supply 25mn mt/yr of LNG –equal to about 8% of the world’s production, Bechtel said October 11. 

“Completion of the unprecedented scale of engineering and construction work on Curtis Island in Australia is a historic achievement for Bechtel, the largest greenfield program we delivered since the company was founded in 1898,” said Alasdair Cathcart, president of Bechtel’s Oil, Gas and Chemicals business unit.

With all the three LNG project on Curtis Island now operational, exports from Gladstone Port have seen a sharp jump in recent months. In fact, fiscal 2015-2016 (July 1-June 30) was a bumper year of LNG exports. Gladstone Port Corporation on October 4 said Gladstone Port exported 12.2mn mt of LNG during the FY 2015-2016, compared with only 1.61mn mt during the year before. Gladstone Port Corporation's expectation that rising exports would continue in FY2016-2017 as well is expected to come true as early numbers have been encouraging. In August, exports topped 1.5mn mt for the first time. The trend continued in September as well with total LNG exports from Gladstone Port reaching 1.56mn mt.

Shardul Sharma