LNG

June 21 (LNGJ) - APA Group, the Australian energy infrastructure company, has agreed to sell the Orbost Gas Processing Plant in the southern Australian state of Victoria to Cooper Energy in a deal worth up to A$330 million (US$230M) via four instalments. The deal comes amid rising Australian natural gas prices. The spot gas price in Victoria, including the city of Melbourne, has risen from the equivalent of around US$7.00 per million British thermal units in March 2022 to about US$26.25 per MMBtu in June.

   The Orbost plant is close to Cooper Energy’s offshore Gippsland Basin assets and connections into the Southeast Australian gas market and the Eastern Gas Pipeline. “Cooper Energy’s acquisition of the Orbost Gas Processing Plant is transformative for the company,” said Managing Director David Maxwell. “The acquisition represents the next step in Cooper Energy’s twin gas supply hub position and is underpinned by attractive market dynamics in the tightening Southeast Australia gas supply,” he added.

Australia, the largest LNG exporter to North Asia ahead of Qatar and the US, is now taking measures to underpin its own energy security by accelerating seven priority natural gas infrastructure projects and plans to give them government start-up funds to help protect Australia from potential global energy shortages and keep downward pressure on prices.

A Trans-Australia natural gas pipeline is back on the agenda with supplies being transported from Western Australia to the East Coast instead of, or in addition to, developing LNG import infrastructure and has renewed talk about the undeveloped onshore Australian resources rivalling the US Permian Basin.

Cooper Energy, the Australian oil and gas exploration company, is continuing the commissioning of the Orbost gas plant in the southeast state of Victoria from offshore supplies in the Sole gas field of the Gippsland Basin that may limit the needs for future LNG imports to the region.

Australia’s largest natural gas infrastructure company, APA Group, has signed a preliminary agreement to identify a pipeline route to connect the Galilee Basin in Queensland to Australia’s East Coast domestic gas market and to LNG export plants.

The Australian state of Victoria has delayed an LNG regasification project planned by AGL Energy to end energy shortages because the Labor-run government has ordered a full environmental assessment of the venture ahead of November elections.

Australian regulators said they would not oppose the A$13 billion (US$9.8 billion) acquisition of natural gas pipeline company APA Group by the CK Consortium of Hong Kong after the Chinese company agreed to sell-off some assets in Western Australia.

Australian pipeline company APA Group that controls key connections across the country and to LNG export plants has updated shareholders on the A$13 billion (US$9.8 billion) takeover offer it received in June from a Chinese consortium.

Australian pipeline company APA Group that controls connections to LNG plants in the states of Queensland and Western Australia and is building a pipeline to a new FLNG import project near Melbourne has received a A$13 billion (US$9.8 billion) takeover offer from a Chinese consortium

AGL Energy of Australia said it signed two agreements in relation to its proposed liquefied natural gas import jetty planned for Crib Point in the state of Victoria, one of two regasification projects planned for the southeast of the country to underpin gas supplies.