OZ LNG to dominate Japan
WITH the plethora of liquefied natural gas projects set to come onstream in the next few years, Australia could soon replace Southeast Asian countries as the top supplier of LNG to Japan.
Japan is the world’s top importer of LNG and accounts for about 30% of total global LNG demand.
According to a Dow Jones Newswires report, Indonesia was the biggest source of Japan’s LNG since the 1980s. However, in the first six months of 2010, it was overtaken by Malaysia and Australia who exported 6.88 million tonnes and 6.3MMt respectively.
EnergyQuest chief executive officer Dr Graeme Bethune told PetroleumNews.net the reason for Indonesia’s slip backwards reflects the decline in production from the Bontang and Arun plants.
“Last year, Australia exported 17.9 million tonnes while Indonesia exported 19.2 million tonnes so Australia wasn’t far behind and that was before the fifth train at the North West Shelf was fully ramped up,” he said.
“Interestingly, Indonesia had the Tangu project start-up last year which has got capacity of 7.6 million tonnes, so notwithstanding the start-up of Tangu, Indonesia is slipping back and that reflects the decline in production from their historic plants at Bontang and Arun.”
Bethune also said Indonesia’s decline was due to the use of gas for domestic purposes and that not all of the LNG contracts with Japan have been rolled over.
“So part of the story is the growth in Australia and the other part is the decline in Indonesia.”
Next year, Australia’s export of LNG to Japan is set to increase with the start-up of Woodside’s Pluto LNG project.
Woodside has signed a deal to sell up to 1.75MMt per annum to Tokyo Gas and 2MMtpa to Kansai Electric Power.
Exports to Japan will continue to increase with Chevron set to start delivering Gorgon LNG to Japanese buyers in 2014 with a number of CSG-LNG projects in Queensland following suit.
Australia is also set to increase exports of LNG to energy hungry China but Bethune said he didn’t think China was likely to overtake Japan as the world’s top importer.
“Wood Mackenzie has been suggesting 46 million tonnes by 2020 [for China]. Japan imports around 63 million tonnes at the moment so I think Japan is likely to stay well ahead of China over the next 10 years,” he said.
“Even though overall demand isn’t likely to increase in Japan, we can certainly see more Japanese contracts for Australian LNG.”
Monday, 23 August 2010
PetroleumNews.net
http://www.petroleumnews.net/StoryView.asp?StoryID=1139224
