LNG

Australian LNG exporters be required to reserve 20% of their gas production for the east coast domestic market under a new policy, effective July 1, 2027. The measure targets three LNG projects – Shell/Arrow Energy's Queensland Curtis LNG, Santos’ Gladstone LNG, and Origin/ConocoPhillips' Australia Pacific LNG.

Australian natural gas explorer Elixir Energy has given a positive update on expanding activities in Queensland’s onshore Bowen Basin, which supplies feed gas for LNG plants and could potentially help avert a security of supply crisis on the East Coast.

MidOcean Energy, the LNG assets company formed and managed by global infrastructure investor EIG, said Japanese trading house Mitsubishi Corp. had made a strategic investment.

EIG is a leading institutional investor in the global energy and infrastructure sectors with around $23 billion under management and also announced on March 28 that it had completed the acquisition of the portfolio interests in Australia of Tokyo Gas.

Mitsubishi has been an active player in the LNG sector for over 50 years and is involved in 12 projects, including the LNG Canada venture that comes on stream soon in the province of British Columbia.

The Japanese company made the investment In MidOceam to develop its clean-energy portfolio while fulfilling its responsibility as a stable energy supplier to Japan.

EIG’s MidOcean said that Mitsubishi’s investment, the details of which were not disclosed, deepened MidOcean’s blue-chip base and builds on its “significant momentum” since launching in late 2022.

Blue-chip investors

“We are thrilled to have Mitsubishi join as an anchor investor,” said De la Rey Venter, Chief Executive of MidOcean.

“Mitsubishi has been a pioneer of the global LNG industry and has consistently demonstrated its expertise and foresight in identifying valuable opportunities,” Venter added.

“Their investment is a testament to the strong fundamentals of the LNG market and MidOcean’s strategy to create a competitive long-term growth platform in LNG,” stated the MidOcean CEO.

R. Blair Thomas, EIG’s Chairman and CEO, said he welcomed a strategic partnership with a company such as Mitsubishi.

“The world’s energy transition needs are contributing to rapid growth in global LNG demand, and we look forward to continuing to execute on this attractive and important opportunity,” added Thomas.

Tokyo Gas deal

MidOcean’s recent completion of the acquisition of the Tokyo Gas assets in Australia gives it stakes in the Chevron-operated Gorgon LNG, the Pluto LNG project run by Woodside Energy and the Shell-operated Queensland Curtis LNG venture.

As part of the transaction, MidOcean said it would open an office in Perth in Western Australia to support and oversee the projects.

EIG is headquartered in Washington DC and also has offices in Houston, Texas, London, Sydney, Rio de Janeiro, Hong Kong and Seoul.

For the completion of the MidOcean-Tokyo Gas deal Barrenjoey, Barclays and JP Morgan acted as financial advisors to EIG and MidOcean in connection with the transaction.

White & Case acted as legal advisor to EIG and MidOcean.

EIG’s clients include many of the leading pension plans, insurance companies, endowments, foundations and sovereign wealth funds around the world.

Elixir Energy, the Australian exploration and production company with coal-seam gas interests in the Gobi Basin of Mongolia, is also making progress with asset development in the Australian state of Queensland where it is hoping to discover sufficient CSG for liquefaction and export.

The Australian regulatory and competition watchdog has waved through the A$18.7 billion (US$11.9Bln) buyout of Origin Energy by a North American consortium and with a resultant side-deal also giving Saudi Aramco access for the first time to the liquefied natural gas sector.

Revenues from the Australia-Pacific LNG (APLNG) plant in Queensland for the quarter to the end of March declined amid the implementation of the sale of Australia's Origin Energy to Canadian and US funds, Brookfield Asset Management and Washington DC-based EIG.

The Australian Government plans to extend a natural gas price cap through mid-2025 while seeking to relax its attitude towards LNG exporters who have already agreed to domestic gas supply commitments.

UK major Shell plc posted the company’s highest ever annual profits helped by record natural gas prices as its LNG sales volumes also increased during the quarter and for the full year.

Jan 6 (LNGJ) - Shell Plc has updated its earnings forecast for Integrated Gas and the other divisions and sees lower liquefaction volumes in Australia. Shell said these lower volumes mainly reflected the longer than expected plant outage at the “Prelude FLNG” plant offshore northwest Australia and “operational issues” at the Queensland Curtis LNG export facility.

   Shell’s adjusted earnings in Integrated Gas will see pre-tax depreciation of $1.2 billion to $1.6 billion. Shell added that its Trading and Optimisation earnings in the fourth quarter were “expected to be significantly higher” compared with the third quarter of 2022. In the Upstream division production was expected to be between 1,825 and 1,925 kboe/d.

Senex Energy, a leading coal-seam gas company controlled by South Korea’s POSCO International in the onshore Surat Basin of Queensland and which is part of the Gladstone LNG upstream supply chain, said it would have to suspend its A$1 billion (US$670 million) investment plan because of the Australian government gas price cap and market interference.