NT now the ‘third force’ in Australia’s Liquefied Natural Gas boom

THE Northern Territory has become the third biggest producer of LNG in Australia thanks to Inpex

Inpex’s $50 billion Darwin Ichthys LNG onshore processing facilities. Picture: Supplied

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THE Northern Territory has become the “third force” in Australian LNG taking the nation to the top rung as the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG) according to latest analysis by Australian independent energy consultancy EnergyQuest.

Its chief executive, Dr Graeme Bethune, says that while Qatar’s final production figures for 2019 were yet to be produced, Australian operational capacity of 88 million tonnes (Mt) now substantially exceeds the 77Mt of its Middle Eastern rival.

And the reason for that is Darwin’s Ichthys and Darwin LNG projects.

The largest percentage growth was the Northern Territory’s Ichthys LNG project, producing 7.529Mt in calendar 2019 – up 900 per cent in a year from its commissioning volumes in 2018.

In 2019 it lifted sold output 153 per cent to more than 10.5Mt from 4.15Mt the previous year.

Total Australian 2019 LNG shipments were up by 11.4 per cent on 2018, primarily due to the growth in production from the $44 billion Ichthys project, operated by Japan’s INPEX.

The Australian contribution was also made up of other fully established LNG hubs at Karratha in Western Australia and Gladstone in central Queensland.

Western Australian production was steady on 2018 and Queensland production was up by 8.2 per cent to 22.4Mt, with both APLNG and QCLNG operating at close to full capacity. EnergyQuest says the new data underpins the emergence of the Northern Territory as now the third force in Australian LNG, producing 14 per cent of Australia’s 2019 LNG exports.

“The record Australian performance for last year is 2.5Mt above the forecast of Qatar 2019 production of 75Mt, contained in the December 2019 Australian Government Resources and Energy Quarterly,” Dr Bethune said.

“On an annualised basis, we have previously achieved the global title in some individual months but 2019 is the first time Australia has topped global LNG export performance on a sustained annual basis,” he said. “Australia’s 10 LNG projects have a combined capacity of 87.8Mt. However, with only 88 per cent of total nameplate capacity used over 2019, there remains opportunity going forward to lift the current production milestone even higher.

“For example, the Shell-operated Prelude floating LNG project offshore WA is only expected to reach full capacity in 2020.”

The 2019 Australian LNG exports were more than twice those of the US, the world’s other fast-growing LNG producer. The US Energy Information Administration expects the US to have exported 34.3Mt in 2019.

Western Australia continued to dominate the country’s LNG output at 57 per cent of the national total, with Queensland garnering 29 per cent of those exports.

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The largest contributing project to Australian LNG exports was the Woodside-operated North West Shelf project. Western Australia alone is now the world’s second largest LNG producer with Queensland ranking a significant sixth.

“To put the $49 billion of LNG export revenue in context, the total value of exports of both goods and services from Victoria was estimated by Global Victoria to be $57.7 billion in 2018-19,” Dr Bethune said.