LNG

Woodside is considering using its pre-emptive rights to veto Inpex’s farm-in to the Browse joint venture, as this move threatens to undermine feedgas supply for its North-West Shelf LNG export terminal. The deal is seen as a catalyst to shift Browse gas production away from the NWS LNG hub towards Inpex’s Ichthys LNG train in Darwin.

Osaka Gas, the Japanese utility and leading liquefied natural gas importer, plans to launch the company’s first ship-to-ship LNG bunkering business for customers in the Osaka Bay and the Seto Inland Sea areas of Japan.

The operations will be led by a specialized LNG bunkering vessel from fiscal 2026.

“This commercial undertaking will see Osaka Gas supplying fuel to LNG-powered ships using stocks taken from Osaka Gas import terminals” said the company, a unit of the Daigas Group.

The Osaka Gas import facilities, which additionally offer truck-loading for fuel users, include the Himeji terminal with eight storage tanks with a combined 740,000 cubic metres of capacity.

The utility’s biggest terminal is the Senboku II facility with 1.43 million cubic metres of capacity in 16 storage tanks.

The Osaka Gas global LNG supply portfolio includes cargoes from the US Freeport plant in Quintana Island in Texas, Oman LNG and from the Chevron-operated Gorgon export plant in Western Australia.

It also has Australian offtake from the Woodside-operated North West Shelf plant and the Darwin plant in the Northern Territory.

Its other main suppliers include Papua New Guinea LNG and the Russian Far East plant on Sakhalin Island.

Partners

The company said that the bunkering vessel construction would be led by Osaka Bay LNG Shipping Co., a company jointly established by Osaka Gas International Transport, NS United Coastal Tanker Kaisha Ltd. (NSUT) and Kobe-Osaka International Port Corp.

Under the agreements, Osaka Bay LNG Shipping would own the LNG bunkering vessel to be constructed under the government’s subsidy programme for clean energy and NSUT, an established LNG coastal vessel operator, will manage and operate the vessel.

Osaka Gas said that HPC would promote the business and LNG bunkering across the shipping industry in Japan in cooperation with the relevant government agencies.

The utility company said it was broadening its business to benefit from the increasing number of LNG-powered vessels expected to come into operation due to the global trend for cleaner marine fuel.

“The Daigas Group intends to expand the LNG bunkering business and achieve the commercialization of e-methane and its application to bunkering,” Osaka Gas added.

May 31 (LNGJ) - Woodside Energy, the Australian operator of the North West Shelf and Pluto LNG export projects, has completed the award of all major contracts for the decommissioning of subsea infrastructure at the Enfield, Griffin, Stybarrow and Echo Yodel oil and gas fields offshore Western Australia.

   “The upcoming work will follow successful decommissioning activities which have been underway at the Enfield and Balnaves fields since the first quarter of 2022,” said Woodside. “Specialist contractors engaged to undertake activities during the subsea decommissioning campaign include TechnipFMC, Heerema, McDermott, Fugro, DOF and McMahon. A contract for the permanent plug and abandonment of wells in the Stybarrow field has also been awarded to Transocean,” Woodside added.

April 21 (LNGJ) - Woodside Energy, the operator of the Northwest Shelf and Pluto LNG export plants in Western Australia, reported an 81 percent surge in first-quarter revenues to US$4.33 billion versus US$3.39Bln in the same three months of 2022. However, the income fell 16 percent from US$5.16Bln in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to the Perth-based company’s quarterly activities report.

   Woodside reported that the Scarborough gas field and the Pluto LNG Train II projects were now 30 percent complete with the export trunkline 86 percent finished and first concrete poured for the second Pluto Train. The drilling programme for the Sangomar oil project offshore Senegal progressed with 10 of 23 wells complete. “The Sangomar floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) topsides and pre-commissioning works continued in Singapore,” it added.

Mitsui & Co. of Japan, a leading liquefied natural gas market participant and trader, confirmed the acquisition of shale-gas assets in South Texas with access to LNG export plants on the US Gulf Coast.

Mitsui said it purchased a 92 percent working interest in the Eagle Ford basin assets from a subsidiary of Silver Hill Energy Partners, a private company based in Dallas, Texas.

The assets comprise 8,500 net acres known as the Hawkville field and with easy reach of the region’s LNG export cluster.

The confirmation statement from Mitsui on the acquistion did not include a value for the transaction.

“Additional gas production is expected from this asset with further development,” said the company.

The Eagle Ford acreage will be managed by a company subsidiary, Mitsui E&P USA.

“The subsidiary will develop and operate the asset, aiming for stable gas production of over 200 million cubic feet per day from the field,” Mitsui explained.

Mitsui stated that it was also promoting liquefaction and export of US natural gas to global markets and has methanol production businesses using natural gas as feedstock.

Cameron stake

It has also increased its offtake from the Cameron LNG plant in Louisiana, operated by Sempra Infrastructure, and where the Japanese company has a 16.5 percent shareholding.

However, Mitsui’s LNG assets are global with holdings in the Middle East at liquefaction plants in Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates.

In Asia, Mitsui has an LNG stake in the Tangguh export project in Indonesia and is still a shareholder in the Sakhalin LNG plant in the Russian Far East.

It additionally has a stake in the oldest Australian liquefaction plant, the Woodside-operated Northwest Shelf (NWS) plant, and has an impending tolling deal at NWS using feed gas from the onshore Perth Basin in Western Australia.

“In addition to proactively pursuing upstream development projects, we will strengthen the natural gas value chain, including adjacent businesses,” Mitsui stated.

Mitsui said it believed that natural gas and LNG would play an important role as a “pragmatic solution” for the energy transition and it would continue to contribute to the stable supply of energy.

Woodside, the Western Australian operator of two LNG plants and oil and gas assets, more than doubled quarterly sales revenue to US$1.53 billion as prices jumped and even as the company executed significant scheduled maintenance activities at both the North West Shelf plant and Pluto LNG.

Leading Australian gas and power supplier AGL Energy has confirmed it will cease any further development of the proposed Crib Point LNG import project in the southern state of Victoria as it also pursues a corporate overhaul by spinning off infrastructure assets.

Modec Inc, the Japanese builder of offshore floating production and storage platforms, has been awarded a contract by Woodside Energy to operate an oil and gas platform for the Western Australian LNG project stakeholder’s most import venture outside of Australia.

Australia is on track for record LNG shipments to remain the world’s largest exporting country, ahead of Qatar and the US, even in a year when two plants suffered long shutdowns and economies worldwide were slowed by the Covid-19 pandemic.

July 16 (LNGJ) - Australian LNG shipments in June were down by eight compared with May, primarily due to scheduled maintenance at the Gorgon plant on Barrow Island in Western Australia. “Australian projects shipped 5.9 million tonnes (85 cargoes) in June, compared with 6.4MT (93 cargoes) in May,” said a report by consultants EnergyQuest.

   “In June there were still a large number of cargoes that have had their delivery delayed. An estimated 33 Australian cargoes loaded during June anchored offshore or steamed slowly awaiting final destination orders after 41 were seen to be delayed during May,” added the report. Deliveries to major North Asian markets were lower compared with June 2019. Australian projects delivered a total of 70 cargoes to China, Japan and Korea in June, down from 77 cargoes a year earlier.