LNG

TotalEnergies has signed a liquefied natural gas sale and purchase agreement to supply Sembcorp Fuels, a wholly owned subsidiary of Singapore-based Sembcorp Industries.

The deal entails the delivery of up to 800,000 tonnes of LNG for a duration of 16 years, commencing in 2027.

“The LNG will be sourced from TotalEnergies’ global portfolio. This new agreement adds to the companies’ current SPA, which runs until 2029,” the French major explained.

“By supplying this additional LNG supply to Singapore, TotalEnergies is contributing to the country’s energy security and to its decarbonization goals,” said TotalEnergies.

“This deal also reflects TotalEnergies’ commitment to supporting its customers in their transition to greater sustainability,” it added.

TotalEnergies is the world’s third-largest LNG player with a market share of around 12 percent and a global portfolio of about 50 MTPA with interests in export facilities from Africa to Australia.

Qatar deals

QatarEnergy is also a key supplier to TotalEnergies and in 2023 two long-term LNG SPAs were signed to supply of up to 3.5 MTPA of LNG from Qatar to France.

Under the Qatar agreements, LNG will be delivered ex-ship to the Fos Cavaou LNG receiving terminal located west of Marseilles.

Those deliveries are expected to start in 2026 for a term of 27 years.

TotalEnergies has gas interests in two of Qatar’s expansion joint ventures, the North Field East (NFE) and the North Field South (NFS) projects.

TotalEnergies recently reported declines in annual and quarterly net profits as commodity prices plummeted compared with the previous year while the French major sold over 44 million tonnes of LNG and opened the Le Havre floating LNG regasification terminal in France while being further boosted by progress in other oil and gas projects.

TotalEnergies posted a 35 percent drop in adjusted net operating income for all of 2023 to $25.10 billion from $38.47Bln in 2022.

For full-year 2023, hydrocarbon production for LNG was up 9 percent compared with 2022 due to increased supply to Nigeria LNG in West Africa, higher availability of Ichthys LNG in the Northern Territory of Australia and from the Hammerfest LNG plant in Norway.

Japan Petroleum Exploration (Japex), which operates the main LNG import terminal in Japan’s Fukushima Prefecture, is taking its expertise to Vietnam to help develop an LNG receiving terminal in the Vietnamese port city of Haiphong.

Royal Dutch Shell has signed an agreement to exit the depleting Malampaya gas field in the Philippines as the southeast Asian nation advances with several plans for LNG import projects to fuel gas-fired power projects.

Marubeni Corp. is pushing forward its LNG import project and power plans in Vietnam with partner Tokyo Gas as it signed an agreement for the first phase of a large regional development project consisting of an industrial park and other facilities in Quang Ninh Province in the bay area northeast of Hanoi.

JERA Co Inc., the largest Japanese LNG buyer, said it signed an accord with ExxonMobil and the city government of the Vietnamese port of Haiphong to work together on a potential integrated LNG-to-Power project for the Port.

First Gen Corp., the largest provider of gas-fired power in the Philippines, has chosen Australia-based McConnell Dowell as its engineering contractor for an interim floating import terminal at Batangas City to help guarantee the Asian nation's energy security as a major domestic gas field depletes.

Vietnam is making progress on developing four LNG import terminals and the latest to make a statement is one venture planned for the port city of Haiphong involving US major ExxonMobil Corp.

The governing People's Committee of Haiphong said it had approved a $5 billion LNG import terminal and power project scheduled to come on stream by 2026.

“The terminal will have a capacity of 6 million tonnes of LNG per annual and a power project built in two stages with a final generation capacity of 4,500 megawatts,” said the Haiphong authorities.

However. ExxonMobil has yet to confirm the venture, though one of its senior executives recently held talks with the Vietnamese Prime Minister.

A second Vietnamese LNG-for-Power venture is being developed by Singapore-based company Delta Offshore at Bac Lieu province in the Mekong Delta.

This project will also be built in four phases and is scheduled to be built by 2026.

A third LNG terminal is envisaged adjacent to a gas-fired power station in Ninh Thuan province, south of Cam Ranh Bay.

The fourth project is at Long An, also on the Mekong Delta, and this will see the development of a 3,000MW power plant.

Vietnam said in June 2020 that talks had taken place by telephone between Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Irtiza Sayyed, President of ExxonMobil LNG Market Development, on LNG imports and power facilities.


The Hanoi government said in a statement at the time that a power project in Haiphong could use LNG imported from the United States or other countries.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc had said he welcomed ExxonMobil’s willingness to invest in Vietnam in many areas, including natural gas exploration and LNG, petrochemical refining and electricity production from LNG.

ExxonMobil’s main US LNG export interests are as a shareholder in the Qatar Petroleum-led Golden Pass export project in Texas.

Qatar Petroleum owns 70 percent of the Golden Pass joint venture and ExxonMobil holds 30 percent.

Originally built as an import facility on the Sabine-Neches Waterway in Texas before the shale-gas revolution, Golden Pass will be reconfigured to export up to 15.6 million tonnes per annum of LNG.

The Bac Lieu project of Delta Offshore is the most advanced of the planned Vietnamese LNG terminal build-out and said in September 2020 it had signed a technology license agreement with Stena Power and LNG Solutions for jetty-less LNG receiving and regasification technology.

The Mekong Delta facility will employ Stena’s Autonomous Transfer System (ATS) and Self-installing Regas Platform (SRP) solutions to provide energy for its power plants.

Malaysian Energy company Petronas has announced the launch of its LNG delivery service by truck for off-grid small-scale customers across Peninsular Malaysia from the regasification terminal at Pengerang in the state of Johor.

“Petronas provides industries in Peninsular Malaysia that are not connected to the natural gas infrastructure with an option to switch to gas as an alternative form of cleaner energy,” said the company.

As part of the pilot phase, Petronas completed its first delivery of LNG to a tyre manufacturing plant for the company, Continental Tyre Alor Setar Malaysia.

“The solution forms a part of Petronas’s commitment to environmental sustainability and to drive the growth of natural gas usage in Malaysia,” said Adnan Zainal Abidin, a Petronas Executive Vice President and Chief Executive of the company’s Gas and New Energy division.

He said that by establishing the necessary infrastructure the national oil and gas company offers customers a cleaner and competitive form of energy for power.

“We achieve this by embracing our customers pain-points in our strategies which results in strong collaborations across Petronas’s value chain to provide an integrated solution,” he explained.

“Ultimately, we provide a one-stop centre for off-grid customers, covering supply, loading facilities and logistic services to ensure that their cleaner energy needs are met,” he added.

“The launch of our latest solution is a testament to how Petronas delivers customer-centric solutions through our focus on innovation,” stated Adnan.

Along with other global energy companies, Petronas recently posted a loss due to lower prices and a curtailment of economic activity because of Covid-19.

Petronas reported a first-half loss of 16.5Bln Malaysian ringgit ($3.97Bln) and a 23 percent year-on-year reduction in revenue to 93.6Bln ringgit ($22.5 billion) on the back of lower average realised prices and a drop in sales volumes for processed gas and LNG.

The company said that it was looking at ways of cutting costs, including wage cuts to avoid reducing its number of employees.

Petronas President and Chief Executive Muhammad Taufik Tengku Aziz, said the company was considering pay cuts for its more than 47,000 employees in the light of the continued challenging market conditions.

The Southeast Asian nation of Myanmar is making progress in constructing a liquefied natural gas import terminal to support a regional power plant project backed by a Chinese company.

The Energy Market Authority of Singapore is advancing with plans for a second regasification and storage terminal in the city state as it aims to confirm its position as an Asian LNG hub with a high representation of global trading firms and LNG bunkering availability.