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| Does the world need more LNG projects? The International Energy Agency (IEA) recently released its annual World Energy Outlook (WEO) for 2024. The IEA says that for markets to absorb all the new LNG supply and continue to grow past 2030 would require a combination of lower prices, higher electricity demand, and slower energy transitions. The IEA states that: “Existing LNG export capacity and new capacity under construction is sufficient to meet projected demand in the STEPS until 2040. This suggests that no further projects are required in the near term to satisfy demand for LNG.” The key word in the above quote is “capacity” and the underlying assumption is that the capacity remains fully utilised. Applied to the Australian context, this suggests that further exploration and development is warranted to fill the LNG trains in Queensland to 2040, as is bringing into production new fields in the north and west of Australia as existing reserves associated with those projects run down. Perhaps we don’t need another LNG train in Australia but it would seem there’s a good argument for ensuring the trains we do have are full in the coming decades. Record LNG shipments from Gladstone, Queensland The Gladstone LNG projects typically align their maintenance schedules with the northern hemisphere summer, a period of lower international LNG demand, which coincides with Australia’s high domestic gas demand during winter. By September, most of the planned maintenance programs had been completed, with major maintenance carried out at GLNG during August, which followed APLNG’s scheduled maintenance in July, and QCLNG’s maintenance in May/June. As a consequence, the three gladstone plants experienced increased production and shipping in October than they had during the Australian winter months and achieved a new monthly record of 34 cargoes (previous best was 33 cargoes) along with a total of 2.326 Mt shipped compared to the previous best of 2.227 Mt shipped (33 cargoes) in December 2023. The plants operated at an annualised rate of 27.4 Mtpa in October, equivalent to 104.9% of the nameplate capacity (26.1 Mtpa), higher than September’s 92.7%. Monthly statistical summary Australia’s October 2024 shipments were 83.4 Mtpa on an annualised basis, compared to 81.1 Mtpa for the 2023 calendar year, and 78.5 Mtpa for September 2024. October 2024 shipments represented 94.1% of nameplate capacity. EnergyQuest estimates that Australian LNG export revenue in October was $6.07 billion, higher than the $5.09 billion in September, and reflecting a 6.5% increase compared to October 2023 when revenue was $5.70 billion. WA projects earned export revenue of $3.69 billion, Queensland projects brought in $1.99 billion, and NT projects earned $0.39 billion. West coast (WA and NT) shipments were higher at 4.76 Mt in October, up from 4.46 Mt in September. There were 67 cargoes in October, compared to 63 in September. A year ago, the west coast shipped 66 cargoes totalling 4.60 Mt. West coast projects operated at 89.6% of nameplate capacity during October. |