EnergyQuest: Australia achieves record LNG exports in 2016-17

Australia exported a record volume of 51.4 million tonnes of LNG during the 2016-17 financial year, according to figures just released by energy consultancy EnergyQuest, Adelaide.

It is the first time the country has broken the 50-million-tonne export barrier.

The figure also is a 37% increase on the 2015-16 LNG export volume of 37.5 million tonnes.

EnergyQuest forecasts higher-still exports in the next financial year, 2017-18, suggesting that the volume will reach 63 million tonnes by midyear 2018 with increases expected from Gorgon and the start of Wheatstone next month, plus Ichthys coming on stream in 2018.

Sales for the 2017-18 year have been estimated at $22.3 billion (Aus.), which is a 29% increase on the $16.6 billion for the previous year.

EnergyQuest says that production volumes increased in virtually every Australian LNG export project. The exceptions were Darwin LNG, which was down 900,000 tonnes, and BG Group’s Queensland Curtis LNG at Gladstone, which was down 700,000 tonnes compared with the previous financial year.

Japan, China, and South Korea remain the main destinations for Australian LNG, comprising 91% of deliveries in June. During May, Australia supplied 44% of China’s LNG imports, 31% of Japanese imports, and 21% of South Korean imports.

In related figures, the International Gas Union (IGU) says that world LNG exports reached a peak of 258 million tonnes in 2016—a 13 million-tonne increase on the figure for 2015. Qatar produced 77.2 million tonnes (30% of the global total). Australia was second, Malaysia third with 25.9 million tonnes, and Nigeria fourth with 18.6 million tonnes.

IGU forecasts that Australia will surpass Qatar as the world’s largest LNG producer in 2018. This differs from the Australian government’s more-conservative estimate, which sees Australia not likely to reach full capacity of 77 million tonnes until 2021, by which time Qatar’s output will have dropped to 75 million tonnes.