LNG News Editor:
Australia shipped fewer liquefied natural gas cargoes in January than it did in the previous month with demand ebbing in North Asia as inventories grew and spot cargo prices increased, though the rise of European values did not attract any Australian shipments.
Australia delivered 96 cargoes in January 2022 versus 105 cargoes shipped in December 2021, also amid short-term outages at the North West Shelf and Wheatstone LNG export plants in Western Australia, as well as repair work at the Gorgon facility on Barrow Island.
Customers
“The cargoes delivered in January went to all the usual countries in Asia,” said Australian consultancy firm EnergyQuest in its monthly market outlook.
“There was no sign of any Australian cargoes heading to Europe. Although European prices were occasionally higher than Asian prices, the difference was not enough to make the longer trip worthwhile,” explained the report.
The report, which also gave an overview of the domestic natural gas market and prices, emphasized that cargoes heading to Asia were “enormously profitable”, even those sold on oil-linked prices.
EnergyQuest said that this was already apparent in the fourth-quarter reports from Australian LNG exporting companies Origin Energy, Santos and Woodside, with average realised LNG prices of US$11.80 per million British thermal units, US$13.64 per MMBtu and US$16.00 per MMBtu respectively, depending on their exposure to spot sales.
“At these prices individual cargoes were worth US$42 million to US$56M each,” said the report.
“The good fortune continued into January, with oil prices continuing to increase and high spot prices being maintained,” it added.
Notwithstanding high international gas prices and near-record LNG exports from the three East Coast LNG plants on Curtis Island near Gladstone in Queensland short-term gas prices actually fell, from between A$11 (about US$8.27 per MMBtu) and A$12 per gigajoule in December to between A$8 and A$9 per GJ in January.
