It also comes amid forecasts for continuing robust demand for LNG in Asia over the next decade or two, despite net zero emissions commitments by major buyers Japan, South Korea and China.
The US is set to overtake Australia and Qatar to have the world’s largest LNG export capacity in 2022, just six years after the first exports of LNG from the Lower 48 states, the US Energy Information Administration said Thursday. The decline facing Australian LNG comes as other huge exporters such as Qatar and the US are driving ahead on expansions, underpinned by plentiful reserves. The outlook means that the federal government’s modelling of a rise in Australian LNG exports by 2050 in its net zero plan looks over-optimistic, as does an International Energy Agency forecast, Dr Bethune said. “The trend is certainly down,” Dr Bethune told AFR Weekend, calling for a concerted effort to commercialise the gas already discovered in scattered fields off Western Australia’s coast to keep LNG plants full.
#Darwin project shutting down full
Queensland’s LNG industry, meanwhile, built last decade at a cost of about $80 billion, has never run at full capacity because of a lack of economic gas for Santos-led GLNG. At Darwin LNG, the plant will run out of gas before Santos’ $4.7 billion Barossa field comes online, providing replacement supplies. The shortfall has been exacerbated by recent downgrades in gas reserves at two Woodside fields, which shorten the life of the fields. One of the NW Shelf venture’s five production units – known as trains – may close in 2024, Woodside Petroleum chief executive Meg O’Neill confirmed last week.Īnd while Woodside will build a second LNG train at its Pluto plant as part of its $16.5 billion Scarborough project, the country’s total LNG output may already be close to its peak, says Graeme Bethune, head of consultancy EnergyQuest.Īpart from the to-be-built Pluto-2 plant which is due to produce until 2055, gas reserves for north-west Australia’s other six LNG ventures are all set to run out before 2050, Dr Bethune noted.
Production at Australia’s oldest LNG project, the North West Shelf venture, is already in decline. Australia’s $56 billion-a-year liquefied natural gas industry risks heading into decline without all its $200 billion of recently built capacity ever getting fully used due to a shortage of gas.ĭwindling gas supplies have already this year affected the country’s flagship LNG exporter, the 16.9 million tonnes a year North-West Shelf venture, where flows from offshore fields are declining, leading to a dip in output.
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