HomeNewsQatar may be losing its spot as top LNG exporter

Qatar may be losing its spot as top LNG exporter

8/23/2019

Qatar will lose its title as the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG) within the next year, as Australia ramps up production on a slew of multi-billion dollar export projects.

“Australia and Qatar continued to jostle for the title of the world’s largest LNG exporter over the first five months of 2019,” the Australian government said in a recent report.

Australia exported more LNG than Qatar in November 2018 and April 2019. But now, the U.S Energy Information Administration (EIA) says Australia is on track to consistently export more LNG than Qatar, as recently commissioned projects such as Wheatstone, Ichthys, and Prelude ramp up production.

Prelude, Royal Dutch Shell’s floating LNG facility in a remote field northeast of Broome in Western Australia, shipped its first LNG cargo to customers in Asia in June.

The landmark facility, capable of holding 175 Olympic-sized swimming pools of LNG in its storage tanks alone, was the last of eight new LNG projects that came online in Australia between 2012 and 2018.

The new facilities have pushed Australia’s export capacity from 2.6 billion cubic feet per day (bcf/d) in 2011 to more than 11.4 bcf/d in 2019. The EIA says Australia has already surpassed Qatar in LNG production capacity.

While Australia ramps up, Qatar is unlikely to stay idle. The country plans to boost its LNG capacity by early 2024 to 110 million tons a year, up from around 77 million tons a year, according to Reuters.

“China can’t absorb all of this new LNG which is coming into the market,” Browne said, adding that while prices are down, they’re not out.

“When we look beyond this period of oversupply, I think the fundamental demand story in Asia is very strong, which is why we see so many companies targeting Asia and looking to develop projects now,” he added.

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