Russell: From Leader To Loser: Australia Risks Missing Next LNG Wave

Reuters

(The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters.)

LAUNCESTON, Australia, Aug 17 (Reuters) - Should the arrival of the last major piece of kit in Australia's $180 billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) spree be a cause for celebration or for a wake?

It may seem that the arrival of the Ichthys Venturer floating production, storage and offloading facility would be worthy of breaking out the champagne.

The vessel, which will be moored some 220 kilometres (132 miles) off the northwestern coast as part of Inpex's Ichthys project, is the final piece of the jigsaw that completes eight massive new LNG ventures.

These projects, when in full production, will see Australia overtake Qatar as the world's largest producer of the super-chilled fuel, and become an energy export superpower when one considers the country is already the world's biggest shipper of coal and a significant producer of uranium.

While these accomplishments are worthy of a toast or two, there are also factors that serve to put a dampener on the party.

The first is that Australia's rise to the top of the global LNG tree may be short-lived, as Qatar has announced plans to boost its output beyond the 85.7 million tonnes of LNG capacity already operating or scheduled to start up by the end of next year.

Qatar announced on July 4 it planned to raise its capacity by 30 percent, which would take it to around 100 million tonnes per annum, enough to take back the crown from Australia.

The problem for Australia is not the loss of prestige, it's the fact that Qataris are able to boost capacity by doing brownfield expansions of existing facilities, which is considerably cheaper than building new projects from scratch.

No new LNG project has reached a final investment decision in Australia since 2012, even though at one stage there were five ventures with a capacity of 31.5 million tonnes a year under consideration.

The collapse in spot Asian LNG prices to the current $6.20 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) from over $20 at the start of 2014 has no doubt played a part in delaying, or cancelling projects.

However, there is some hope on this front that by the mid-2020s the LNG market will move from its current oversupplied state back to deficit, mainly as the result of new consumers in countries such as Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, as well as growth in major markets like China.

New Thinking Needed

This means a developer with some confidence that LNG demand will grow in the coming years would have to be looking at sanctioning a new project soon, or risk losing out to competitors.

Having led the last LNG boom, it seems odd that Australia is possibly in one of the weakest positions to be part of any new wave of development.


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