LNG

Liquefied natural gas has been crucial in navigating through the gas market crisis, playing a key role in offsetting the shortages in Europe, with global LNG exports showing a first-half 2023 year-over-year increase of more than 4 percent despite volatilities due to facility maintenance and outages in the Northern Hemisphere summer months.

The market report and outlook comes from the 90-page Global Gas Report 2023 just issued by the International Gas Union, the global voice of the gas industry with more than 150 corporate members in over 80 countries, representing 90 percent of the global gas market and whose President is Li Yalan of China.

“In the context of the globally tight LNG supply, while it was instrumental in keeping the lights on in Europe, the unaffordable prices left some countries in Asia in the dark,” the IGU stated.

“Europe’s natural gas imports shifted from Russian pipelines towards LNG leading to a 69 percent increase in its LNG imports, reaching 124 million tonnes (169 billion cubic metres) and making Europe the biggest importing market, absorbing a significant share of the global LNG volume by outbidding other customers,” the IGU added.

The IGU noted that roughly two thirds of the additional volumes, or 30MT of LNG,came from the United States and in Asia, China reduced LNG imports from Australia and the US by a total of 21MT, while it increased imports from Qatar by around 7.4MT.

Supply shortage

The IGU also stated natural gas prices had cooled in 2023, largely due to demand-side adjustments in Europe and Asia, yet they remain above pre-Covid and pre-energy crisis levels. 

“The shortage of global supply, which was the key reason behind last year’s shocks, is still there: the market is in a state of a fragile and unstable equilibrium,” the IGU explained, citing marginal supply growth and the need for more infrastructure de-bottlenecking.

The report added that Europe's growing dependence on LNG has rendered global gas prices increasingly vulnerable to liquefaction and shipping supply risks.

Global natural gas production in 2022 stayed flat in comparison with the previous year with a marginal 8.3 Bcm uptick, which was less than a 0.5 percent increase year-on-year.

However, the IGU said that first half of 2023 saw a mild revival in global gas supply, yet the final annual result remains uncertain. 

“Looking back, the curtailment of Gazprom’s output in Russia was offset by supply growth in North America, which grew from 1,160 Bcm to 1,213 Bcm, and in the Middle East, which grew from 670 Bcm in 2021 to 687 Bcm in 2022,” the IGU said.

“In Europe, incremental production in 2022 largely came from Norway, which has been maximising output (7 percent growth year-on-year) to increase exports to the rest of the continent,” the report added.

“In Asia, gas production rose modestly from 696 Bcm in 2021 to 712 Bcm in 2022, driven mainly by higher production in China and Central Asia,” said the report.

“By contrast, Africa experienced falling gas production of 1 percent (2.9 Bcm) between 2021 and 2022,” the report stated.

Increasing and new liquefied natural gas production from US and Australian liquefaction and export plants met lukewarm Asia-Pacific demand growth and with no other viable outlet spot LNG shipments were sold at a discount into European terminals, something that is forecast to be repeated this year.

Australia is gearing up for a new round of oil and gas exploration through 2020 that could lead to new liquefied natural gas projects in the years ahead or to the extension of the life-spans of existing ventures.

Offshore exploration and appraisal drilling is finally beginning to recover, with eight wells to be drilled in 2019, up from only five in 2018.

The Australian consultants EnergyQuest have compiled a report covering the nation’s current and forward oil and gas exploration schedules.

Results for two of the eight wells drilled in 2019 have been announced so far, with important successes at both the Corvus-2 and Dorado-2 wells.

Santos, operator of the Gladstone LNG plant and a stakeholder in two other regional liquefaction and export facilities, confirmed a significant natural gas discovery after a successful appraisal of the Corvus field in the Carnarvon Basin offshore Western Australia.

The discovery is in the Corvus 2 well in petroleum permit WA-45-R and in which Santos has a 100 percent interest.

Santos also confirmed major oil and gas resources from well tests in the Bedout Basin, offshore Western Australia, citing analysis of its Dorado-2 appraisal well.

The Dorado-2 well is located in petroleum permit WA-437-P, about 160 kilometres north of Port Hedland and two kilometres away from the Dorado-1 discovery made in July 2018.

The town of Port Hedland is 230km north of the major Western Australian LNG export terminal at Karratha, operated by Woodside Petroleum.

Other wells to be drilled in 2019 include the Achernar-1 by Woodside on behalf of the North West Shelf LNG joint venture. It was spudded in early May in WA-28-P but no result was announced.

“If Achernar-1 is successful, Woodside has approval to drill up to two further exploration wells and three appraisal wells,” said EnergyQuest.

Santos and Carnarvon Petroleum are drilling Roc South-1 and Dorado-3, the first follow-up exploration well to the Dorado discovery and the second Dorado appraisal well.

ExxonMobil is also drilling the Sculpin-1 ultra-deepwater exploration well in VIC/P70 in the established Gippsland Basin in southeast Australia.

“The regulator, approved the environment plan on 17 June, just four months after it was submitted. Diamond Offshore’s ‘Ocean Monarch’ rig, which drilled the unsuccessful Baldfish-1 and Hairtail-1 wells in VIC/P70 last year, will return,” said the EnergyQuest report.

The report said that potentially big offshore wells are also being lined up for drilling in 2020.

Offshore Drilling is planned at Eagle and Kanga (SapuraOMV/Finder), Beehive (Total, Santos, Melbana), Stromlo (Equinor) and Ironbark (BP, Cue Energy, Beach and New Zealand Oil and Gas).

SapuraOMV was formed in January when Austria’s OMV paid US$540 million for a 50 percent stake in the exploration and production assets of Malaysia’s Sapura Energy.

Both companies are making their entry to Australia via the Finder Exploration joint venture.

The Eagle prospect in the Carnarvon Basin is immediately offshore from Onslow and the Wheatstone LNG plant I and has potential 1.2 Tcf of recoverable gas.

“It lies close to existing infrastructure with BHP’s Macedon pipeline and Chevron’s Wheatstone pipeline both running through the block,” said the report.

EnergyQuest noted that the next big offshore well is likely to be Beehive in the Bonaparte Basin, offshore northwest Australia where French major Total and Santos are working towards the exercise of an option over an 80 percent stake held by Melbana Energy.

Equinor’s Stromlo-1 will be the most anticipated offshore well of 2020, assuming Equinor receives approval for its environment plan and is not delayed by the government’s decision to have the plan reviewed by Australia’s chief scientist.

“If all goes well, Equinor will be drilling Stromlo-1 late in 2020 in the Great Australian Bight off the southern coast at about the same time BP spuds an exploration well at Ironbark in the Carnarvon Basin,” said the report.

“Ironbark is a 15 Tcf prospect, located about 40 km north of the North West Shelf fields and one of the world’s largest gas prospects,” it added.