How Australia exported 6.9m tonnes of LNG in one month — Report
BY Eyo Nsima
Australia exported 6.9 million tonnes of the Liquefied Natural Gas, LNG, in November 2020, according to Energyquest Report, obtained by The Daily, www.thedaily-ng.com.
According to the report, “November was a strong month for Australian LNG exports, with 6.9 million tonnes (Mt) shipped, the highest since April this year. This was despite supply disruptions from Gorgon, Australia’s second-largest project, and delays to the start-up of the Prelude floating LNG project. One of the reasons for the strong performance was record production from the east coast LNG projects at Gladstone.
“Taken together, the Gladstone projects exceeded nameplate capacity for the first time since exports commenced in January 2015. Total Australian exports for the year to November are running 1.2 Mt ahead of the same period last year and EnergyQuest expects that total exports for the year could reach a new record of 78 Mt, up on the 77.5 Mt exported in 2019.”
It stated: “The two biggest markets for Australian LNG are Japan and China, which both took 2.6 Mt in November, higher than November 2019 in both cases. The third and fourth biggest markets were Korea and Taiwan. While export volumes have done well during 2020, prices have been gutted. In March, just eight months ago, total LNG export revenue was $4.4 billion. By September it was down to $1.8 billion.
“The good news is that revenue is starting to recover with higher oil and LNG spot prices. In October export revenue was $2.2 billion and EnergyQuest expects that it may have reached $2.9 billion in November. LNG spot prices have staged a remarkable recovery. As of 11 December, the Platts JKM for January was US$11.23/MMBtu, a more than 26-month high and higher than oil-linked prices, currently around US$5.36/MMBtu.”
It added: “As recently as June the JKM was US$2.00/MMBtu. Platts attribute the stronger spot price to a tighter shipping market, persistent supply disruptions, and expectations of cold weather in China and South Korea. Some of the supply disruptions driving higher prices are Australian, reflecting not only the repair work at Gorgon but also possible issues at Wheatstone and Ichthys.”
