LNG

The Japan Bank for International Cooperation has accorded and underwritten loans of more than $800M for a natural gas field, gas pipelines and power projects in Vietnam.

The South Korean government said that liquefied natural gas imports have remained steady and measures were being taken to boost storage for the winter because of continued global geopolitical uncertainties.

US energy and liquefied natural gas project engineering company McDermott has been awarded an initial contract as part of a venture for the development of a natural gas field offshore Vietnam, one of the newest LNG importing nations.

July 10 (LNGJ) - PetroVietnam said the nation’s first LNG terminal, the Thi Vai facility, was ready for commissioning and has just received its first LNG cargo. The company said that the shipment was acquired from Shell and was delivered by the “Maran Gas Achilles” carrier with 174,000 cubic metres of capacity.

   “Thi Vai LNG welcomes the first imported cargo and this is one of the historic moments of PV GAS as well as of Vietnam's energy industry. Let's admire the images of the LNG terminal in Vietnam,” said PetroVietnam in directing traffic to its web site. The development of the Thi Vai LNG terminal project is mainly to provide gas-fired power at the Nhon Trach power project in the southeast region of the country.

The Australian Government said that given the inherent seasonal variability in European natural gas consumption driven by heating demand, there remains a risk of further price volatility in 2023 as seasonal conditions change.

The European Union currently lacks the firm liquefied natural gas contracts needed to fully offset lost Russian pipeline gas volumes, which will force the bloc to source its marginal LNG supplies from global spot markets when needed, according to the latest Australian “Resources and Energy Quarterly” from the Office of the Chief Economist.

“As such, LNG markets are expected to remain in moderate shortfall over 2024 and early 2025, as Europe continues to replace lost Russian pipeline gas with LNG imports,” stated the report.

“Our base case is for Asian spot prices to average US$14/MMBtu over the outlook period, with risks skewed to the upside for the reasons mentioned above,” added the report.

“While this price is well below levels averaged over 2022 (US$33/MMBtu), it is still double the five year, pre-2020 average of US$7/MMBtu,” stated the report.

Export plants

Australia itself has 10 LNG export plant and in 2022 shipped 82 million tonnes of LNG valued at A$91 billion (US$60.55Bln).

The report forecasts that national LNG income will fall through fiscal 2024-2025 to A$60Bln (US$40Bln), with volumes also easing to 79MT over the same period.

“While volatility in LNG markets could re-emerge over the Northern Hemisphere winter and boost spot sale earnings, the base case is that lower energy prices will cause the value of Australian LNG exports to fall,” said the report.

The cargoes last year were mainly delivered to Asia and with 80 percent of volumes being unloaded in Japan, China and South Korea.

Around 75 percent of the cargoes were sold under long-term contracts.

The Australians believe that global LNG trade is expected to grow by 13 percent, or 51MT, over the two-year outlook relative to 2022.

Almost half of the growth (24MT) will come from newly commissioned US LNG plants, while facilities in Nigeria will also contribute 7MT.

Forecasts indicate that most of the new production should be sold to Europe, which is expected to increase its LNG imports from 121MT to 147MT between 2023 and 2025, respectively.

ASEAN volumes

“But ASEAN, Australia’s closest export market, will likely be the second-largest source of demand growth as Vietnam and the Philippines start importing LNG, with total ASEAN demand rising by 11MT over the outlook (two-year) period,” added the report.

The report explained that despite the favourable environment for LNG producers, the outlook for Australia was mixed.

“Australian LNG exports are forecast to fall marginally, as existing facilities face difficulties back-filling their operations with gas from new reserves,” said the report.

“At the same time, investment in offshore exploration remains low despite high commodity prices, which could impact Australian gas production beyond the outlook period,” it declared.

Indonesia, a leading Asian LNG producer, has approved a plan of development for the Tuna offshore natural gas field with total estimated investment at over US$3.0 billion and in the face of continued Chinese claims to sovereignty over most of the South China Sea where the field is located.

Glenfarne Group, the US developer and operator of global energy and infrastructure assets and of the Texas LNG Brownsville and Magnolia LNG projects in Texas and Louisiana, has overhauled the business and formed Glenfarne Energy Transition (GET) for its energy assets while giving estimates for LNG final investment decisions.

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.

Vietnam is making progress on several liquefied natural gas import projects to support associated power plants and one such venture in Bac Lieu Province in the southern Mekong Delta has been highlighted in a half-yearly Vietnamese report on the economy.

The Australian-listed developer of the US Magnolia LNG plant in Louisiana with an export accord to supply cargoes for Vietnam has run out of money and time after a takeover by a private firm from Singapore fell through, along with short-term financing arrangements.