LNG

China Petroleum and Chemical Corp. (Sinopec), one of the main Chinese LNG importers, is taking volumes from Western Australia as well as its booked cargoes from the Australia-Pacific export plant in Queensland in the East of the country.

The 159,800 cubic metres capacity carrier “Woodside Rogers” lifted a cargo around mid-November for the two-week voyage to Sinopec’s Tianjin North onshore terminal.

Sinopec said that its Tianjin North onshore LNG terminal had received 7.06 million tonnes of LNG since the start of 2020, almost the total of its contracted volumes from the Australia-Pacific LNG plant in Queensland.

Sinopec said the “Woodside Rogers” was the 107th LNG carrier to have docked and unloaded at Tianjin in 2020.

“Since Tianjin terminal started accepting LNG in 2018, it has received and unloaded a total of 248 ships with about 16.5MT,” said Sinopec.

“With the start of the winter heating, the terminal in Tianjin is important to ensure the natural gas supply for the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region,” it added.

Sinopec additionally stated that its LNG imports rose to 12.53MT tonnes on an annualized basis, including more than 7MT from Australia.

Sinopec, which plans to more than double its LNG receiving capacities to 41MT by 2025, currently has capacity at three Chinese import terminals and is a partner of US major ConocoPhillips in the Australia-Pacific LNG export plant in Queensland.

The Chinese company’s regasification capacity in addition to Tianjin is at two other facilities, the Qingdao terminal in Shandong province and the Beihai LNG terminal in the Guangxi autonomous region bordering Vietnam.

China is currently reforming its pipeline and terminal systems by giving more access to third-party shippers.

Sinopec’s plans include expanding the Tianjin terminal, which supplies Beijing, to have a capacity to handle 12MT of imports.

It was recently estimated that China imported 23.5MT of Australian LNG in the first 10 months of 2020, in line with the same period last year.

Australia remains the world’s leading LNG exporter and will be just ahead of Qatar with 78MT of output in 2020 versus Qatar’s 77MT.

All Australian LNG projects export to China, though around half come from the three Queensland coal-seam-gas-to-LNG plants in which two Chinese companies have stakes.

Sinopec’s volumes from APLNG and China National Offshore Oil Corp.’s stake in the Royal Dutch Shell-owned Queensland Curtis LNG facility.

The Nangang import project being developed will give Tianjin port a third terminal scheduled to come on line in 2022 with 10 tanks and up to 2 million tonnes of storage.

Tianjin’s Nangang project is led by another company, Beijing Gas, and will have an initial 5 MTPA of capacity.

Origin Energy, the Australian utility and upstream supplier for the Australia-Pacific LNG export plant in Queensland, whose other shareholders are ConocoPhillips and Chinese major Sinopec, said its share of quarterly LNG sales rose by 8 percent to 828,700 tonnes from the total of 31 cargoes shipped from the facility.

Origin Energy, a shareholder in the Australia-Pacific liquefied natural gas export project in Queensland with ConocoPhillips of the US and Chinese major Sinopec, reported a year-on-year jump in the plant’s LNG revenues because of the higher effective oil price.

Origin said it received A$943 million (US$649.7M) in cash from APLNG in the past fiscal year.

The APLNG project’s full commodity revenue was up 36 percent at A$2.78Bln (US$1.91Bln) compared with A$2.05Bln in the previous year.

Origin also said its average LNG price in the quarter to the end of June was US$9.13 per million British thermal units.

Origin said its share of LNG volumes from its 37.5 percent stake in APLNG had fetched a 4 percent higher average price in the quarter compared with last year’s US$8.99 per MMBtu, though 14 percent lower than the previous 2019 quarter’s US$10.84 per MMBtu.

The APLNG plant produces almost 9 million tonnes per annum from two Trains and 7.6MTPA is contracted to Sinopec, whose formal name is China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation.

Sydney-based Origin said its share of production from the APLNG plant on Curtis Island was 799,800 tonnes in the quarter, a 12 percent rise on the 711,900 tonnes taken in the year-ago quarter.

Origin’s annual share of LNG offtake was 3.24 million tonnes, just 1 percent higher than 3.20MT it received in the previous year.

The company’s LNG revenues were 21 percent higher than the year-ago quarter at A$553.7 million compared with A$456.4M in the same three months of 2018, though 20 percent lower than the previous 2019 quarter when revenue was A$688.8M.

Origin runs two divisions, Integrated Gas, including upstream coal-seam gas for LNG, and Energy Markets, its gas and electricity retail and wholesale business.

APLNG’s production remained stable in the past year despite planned upstream maintenance outages.

“JCC (Japanese LNG) prices recovered in the June-19 quarter, largely driven by OPEC supply cuts and supply outages in Russia,” said Origin.

“Spot LNG prices continued to soften in the quarter, driven by additional supply from new projects and subdued demand growth,” it added.

LNG production decreased 4 percent compared with the previous quarter, driven by an increase in gas being directed to the domestic market.

Total fiscal-year oil and LNG hedging and trading costs for Origin amounted to A$199M

Quarterly domestic gas revenue increased by 19 percent compared with the previous quarter and revenue was up 6 percent for the fiscal year.

In Energy Markets, annual electricity volumes decreased 3 percent due to lower customer accounts and usage.

“Australia Pacific LNG continues its strong operational and financial performance,” said Origin Chief Executive Frank Calabria.

“Revenue was up 36 percent on the prior year driven by higher effective commodity prices which translated to A$943 million of cash flow to Origin,” added the CEO.

“Pleasingly a number of APLNG gas supply contracts were signed during the quarter with domestic manufacturing customers,” he stated.

Origin also expects the A$231M sale of the Ironbark gas assets to APLNG to be completed in August.