Inpex, the Japanese energy company, pointed to the difficulties of developing two large-scale LNG projects, as operator of Ichthys LNG in Australia and the Abadi Floating LNG venture in Indonesia, acknowledging the "difficulty" in hiring workers and the financial burden, as it strives to become a world-class player.
The Canadian Minister of Natural Resources has pledged to push forward the country's LNG projects with legislation to ease the permitting process amid concern its projects are losing out as other countries sign up long-term customers.
The two construction companies of Australia's Leighton Holdings have won around US$4 billion of LNG contracts across Australia in the past year, including work on the Ichthys, Gorgon and Wheatstone projects and the Australia Pacific LNG and Queensland Curtis ventures for coal-seam-gas-to-LNG.
German company Linde said its North American subsidiary formed a joint marketing agreement with American Power Group (APG) to introduce and expand the use of LNG in oil and gas exploration and production.
Tokyo Electric Power Co, , importer of about 30 percent of Japan's annual LNG requirement and a party to 13 long-term LNG purchase contracts, has received a life-saving bail-out from the Japanese government of 1 trillion yen ($12.2Bln) in public funds.
The US Export-Import Bank has authorized the second-largest project financing in its history to back LNG engineer Bechtel and oil major ConocoPhillips in their coal-seam-gas-to-LNG activities in Australia.
RasGas, the Qatari LNG producer, said it completed its first delivery of LNG on board a 215,000 cubic metres capacity Q-Flex carrier and it became the largest LNG vessel to unload at the Spanish terminal.
Would an Asian investment manager rather lead a climb up Mount Kinabalu, Southeast Asia's highest peak, or invest in a US LNG company whose financial stability was an issue of concern just over a year ago?
Wartsila, the Finnish marine propulsion company, will supply a complete power system, including two of its 6-cylinder Wärtsilä 20DF dual-fuel medium-speed engines, for a new LNG-fuelled inland waterway cargo vessel.
QGC, the BG Group subsidiary developing the Queensland Curtis LNG Project in Australia, has awarded a $250M construction contract for the installation of coal-seam gas and water gathering pipelines throughout QGC's CSG fields in the Surat Basin.