LNG Journal

May 24 (LNGJ) - Teekay LNG Partners, the unit of Canada's Teekay Corp. with 29 carriers in its LNG fleet, has filed a prospectus with the US Securities and Exchange Commission to issue common units representing limited partner interests.  Teekay, based in Hamilton, Bermuda, said the shares would have an aggregate offering price of up to $100 million with Citigroup as sales agent.

May 24 (LNGJ) - The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has issued a notice that it will release its final Environmental Impact Statement for the Freeport LNG export plant at Quintana Island, Texas, on December 27, 2013. Freeport recently became the second export project, after Cheniere's Sabine Pass, to be licensed by the Department of Energy to deliver cargoes to countries such as Japan that do not have Free Trade Agreements with the US.

May 23 (LNGJ) - MEO Australia, which has plans to develop the Tassie Shoal LNG project in the Timor Sea, was awarded a new exploration permit, WA-488-P in the Bonaparte basin. WA-488-P covers an area of 4,105 square kilometres. MEO Managing Director Jurgen Hendrich said of the permit: "The award of WA-488-P substantially enhances our acreage footprint in the region. MEO is very encouraged by the prospects identified within the permit, the materiality of which will no doubt appeal to the larger oil and gas companies."

May 22 (LNGJ) - Audubon Engineering of the US was named owner's engineer for the Dominion Cove Point liquefaction project on Chesapeake Bay in Maryland that will see the existing import terminal transformed into an export plant. The engineering, procurement and construction contract has already been awarded to IHI of Japan and Kiewit of Omaha, Nebraska. Traditionally, the owner's engineer is the owner's advocate during the entire EPC process.

May 22 (LNGJ) - Wood Group, the UK-based parent of players in the subsea portions of LNG contracts, has continued the trend of engineering consolidation in the industry by acquiring Intetech Ltd., a niche provider of software and engineering consultancy services for well integrity. The acquired company operates internationally from offices near Chester in the northwest of the UK.

May 21 (LNGJ) - Cosco Corp. of  Singapore said its subsidiary company, Cosco Dalian Shipyard, received an order to build a small-scale 28,000 cubic metres capacity LNG carrier for $82 million for a Chinese shipping company. “The vessel is scheduled for delivery in the first quarter of 2015,” said Wu Zi Heng, Cosco President.

May 21 (LNGJ) - The 216,000 cubic metres capacity Qatari Q-Flex LNG carrier "Al Ghashamiya" is scheduled to deliver a cargo on May 27 from the Ras Laffan plant in Qatar to the South Hook import terminal in Milford Haven in Wales, port authorities said.

May 20 (LNGJ) - Australia Pacific LNG, the coal-seam-gas-to-LNG project involving ConocoPhillips, China's Sinopec and the local Origin Energy, says it now has a dominant position in Queensland's premium CSG acreage. APLNG's reserves base continues to expand, with 3P reserves of 16,047 petajoules and an additional 9,829 PJ of contingent resources. The 2P reserves are more than sufficient to cover gas requirements for all domestic contracts, as well as feed-gas for both liquefaction Trains being built at Curtis Island, near Gladstone

May 17 (LNG) - Japanese LNG carrier fleet operators, NYK Line and Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, "should fare better than some of their peers because of their sheer size, diversification and solid relationships with banks" during the current shipping crisis, according to a report from leading US credit rating agency, Moody's Investors Service.

May 16 (LNG) - Ophir Energy, the partner of BG Group in building feed-gas reserves for an LNG liquefaction project in Tanzania, East Africa, is confident of success. Nick Cooper, Chief Executive, says: "The results of the Mzia-2 appraisal programme represented a key step towards achieving Tanzania's first LNG development project and we await the results of the Ngisi-1 exploration well in June. We are looking forward to an exciting second half of 2013."

May 16 (LNG) - Angola LNG is hoping to start loading cargoes by the end of next month, with some deliveries heading for Mexico under a tender won by a subsidiary of state energy company Sonangol.  Chevron Corp is the main shareholder with Sonangol in Angola LNG, which is now 18 months behind schedule. The other shareholders are Total, BP and Eni.

May 15 (LNGJ) - Parkland Fuel Corp., Canada's largest independent fuel distributor and marketer, signed a deal with Shell Canada to deliver Shell LNG to commercial and industrial customers for use in various high horsepower markets including oil and gas exploration, well stimulation applications and off-grid power generation. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Parkland will distribute LNG from Shell's Jumping Pound liquefaction, storage, and loading facility in southern Alberta to customers across Western Canada.

May 14 (LNG) - Tokyo Electric Power, the biggest Japanese LNG importer, said its shipments in April were 2.04 million tonnes, compared with 1.89 million tonnes in the same month last year. The company plans to use 23.82 million tonnes of LNG in fiscal 2012-2013.

May 13 (LNGJ) - The 210,000 cubic metres capacity Qatari Q-Flex LNG carrier "Al Saflya" is scheduled to deliver a cargo on May 19 from the Ras Laffan plant in Qatar to the South Hook import terminal in Milford Haven in Wales, port authorities said.

May 13 (LNGJ) - JGC Corp., the leading Japanese LNG engineering company, posted annual net profit of $452 million, up 7 percent. The company said its portfolio of LNG projects amounted to $9.3 billion, which was 62 percent of its overall backlog. The Japanese company's most recent award was in March when it won the contract to build the 9th Train at the Petronas LNG complex in Bintulu, Sarawak, in Malaysia.

May 10 (LNGJ) - LNG imports by Taiwan last month declined by 11.5 percent to 982,413 tonnes as the winter season ended. Taiwanese LNG shipments, which come mostly from Qatar and Malaysia, have been relatively stable over the past three years to average around 1 million tonnes per month and 12.67MT in 2012. However, growing imports by mainland China and India have seen Taiwan slip to be the number five LNG importer in Asia from the number three spot.

May 9 (LNG) - BG Group subsidiary QGC estimates a proposed new Australian Federal Government regulation to measure fugitive emissions from natural gas production from coal seams would cost at least A$30,000 a well and yield at most about A$2300 in carbon tax. CSG-to-LNG projects each require several thousand wells to supply feed-gas. In its submission to the government, the developer of the Queensland Curtis LNG project at Gladstone, argued that the large costs outweighed any environment or government revenue gain.

May 8 (LNGJ) - The 135,000 cubic metres capacity LNG carrier "Hyundai Technopia" is scheduled to arrive at the South Korean import terminal of Pyeongtaek on May 23 with a cargo for Korea Gas Corp. from RasGas in Qatar, according to shipping data.

May 8 (LNGJ) - Marathon Oil Corp. of the US said its Equatorial Guinea LNG plant on Bioko Island in the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa completed a scheduled 30-day planned maintenance ahead of schedule and is back on stream processing feed-gas from the Alba field.

May 8 (LNGJ) - The US Magnolia LNG project being developed in Louisiana by Australian company LNG Ltd., with four liquefaction Trains of 2 million tonnes per annum capacity, has been informed by the US Coast Guard it had approved the project's Preliminary Waterway Suitability Assessment for Lake Charles. Magnolia and the Coast Guard have set July 8‐10, 2013, for a follow‐on WSA workshop, LNG Ltd. said.

May 7 (LNG) - Facts Global Energy (FGE), the consultants in LNG and other markets, named Jeff Brown as President with global responsibilities from July 1. He will be based in the Asian headquarters in Singapore, working closely with Europe, the Middle East, and North America. He rejoins FGE after three years at US investment bank J.P. Morgan. Fereidun Fesharaki, Chairman of FGE said: "Jeff will lead FGE to greater heights and he is mandated to expand our scope, size, and coverage to make FGE a more prominent global energy consulting operation with quality service and insights."

May 7 (LNGJ) - The 266,000 cubic metres capacity Qatari Q-Max LNG carrier the "Shagra"  is scheduled to arrive at the UK South Hook LNG import terminal in Milford Haven, Wales, on May 13, port authorities said. This will be the fourth May delivery of LNG to South Hook. Current UK natural gas prices are $9.95 per million British thermal units.

May 6 (LNGJ) - BG finalized an agreement signed last year with China National Offshore Oil Corp. worth $1.93 billion for the supply of LNG and for an equity stake in BG's Queensland Curtis LNG project in Australia. "BG now has total committed volumes to China of 8.6 million tonnes per annum which will make the group the largest supplier of LNG to the world's fastest growing energy market," the company said.

May 3 (LNGJ) - The UK will in the next week receive three Q-Max LNG cargoes from Qatargas at the South Hook import terminal in Wales. On May 5, the Q-Max carrier, the 260,000 cubic metres capacity "Mekaines", will deliver a cargo,  followed by the "Zarga" on May 7 and the "Bu Samara" on May 9, port authorities said.

May 3 (LNG) - Cheniere Energy's Sabine Pass Liquefaction project in Louisiana has formally filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission its notice to commence installation of all equipment for Phase 1 of its US LNG export venture, including Train 1, Train 2, and additional infrastructure and storage.

May 2 (LNGJ) - Norwegian energy company Statoil suffered a 58 percent plunge in first-quarter net profit to 6.4 billion crowns ($1.1Bln) compared to 15.4Bln crowns in the first quarter of 2012. Statoil said its earnings were affected by a variety of issues, including LNG production disruptions at the Hammerfest plant and financial provisions related to Statoil's agreements with the Cove Point LNG terminal in the US.

April 29 (LNGJ) - The Q-Max LNG carrier, the 260,000 cubic metres capacity "Zarga", will deliver a cargo from the Qatargas plant at Ras Laffan on May 7 to the UK South Hook LNG import terminal. On May 5 a cargo will also arrive from Qatargas on the Q-Max vessel "Mekaines", port authorities said.

May 1 (LNGJ) - LNG Ltd. said its Fisherman's Landing LNG project in Gladstone in Queensland, which would be the country's fifth coal-seam-gas-to-LNG venture, was still attempting to secure CSG supplies for the project in cooperation with partner PetroChina. LNG Ltd. said ongoing work was also taking place with China Huanqiu Contracting and Engineering Corp. to finalize a fixed price EPC contract.

April 30 (LNGJ) - Petronet LNG, India's largest LNG importer, has posted a third-quarter net profit of 2.4 billion rupees ($45M), little changed from the same quarter a year ago. Petronet, whose main import terminal is Dahej, north of Mumbai, recently signed a preliminary agreement to buy 4 million tonnes per annum of LNG from the Main Pass US export project being developed on the Gulf coast.

April 30 (LNGJ) – Elengy, the LNG import terminals arm of France's GDF-Suez, appointed Jean-Marc Guyot as Chief Executive  and Chairman of Fosmax LNG. He succeeds Thierry Trouvé, who has held these positions since 2008 and now takes over as CEO of French pipeline network GRTgaz.

April 29 (LNGJ) - The Q-Max LNG carrier, the 260,000 cubic metres capacity "Mekaines", will deliver a cargo from the Qatargas plant at Ras Laffan on May 5 to the UK South Hook LNG import terminal, port authorities said.

April 29 (LNGJ) - The average Customs-cleared price of LNG paid by Japanese utility Tokyo Gas from January to March 2013 was 77,800 yen ($793) per tonne compared with an average of 73,520 yen ($749) in December 2012 to February 2013, a difference of 4,280 yen ($43.70). As a consequence, under Japanese pricing policy, consumers will pay 3.53 yen per cubic metres more for their gas from June.

April 26 (LNGJ) - Chevron Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive John Watson said the leading project developer's Australian ventures remained on track. "Construction is progressing well on the Gorgon and Wheatstone LNG projects," Watson stated in the US major's earnings statement. The company pointed out that it signed binding long-term agreements during the quarter with Chubu Electric Power Co. of Japan for Wheatstone LNG. More than 80 percent of Chevron's equity LNG offtake from Wheatstone is covered under such deals.

April 26 (LNGJ) - Gazprom has held talks with state-owned PetroVietnam regarding the signing of a long-term LNG supply contract. The Southeast Asian country is planning to construct an LNG import facility at Ba Rua-Vung Tau in the southeast of the country that is scheduled to be operational by 2014.

April 26 (LNGJ) - The shale-gas boom in the US, opening the way for LNG exports, is illustrated by the US Energy Information Administration pointing to the fact that net imports of natural gas via pipeline from eastern Canada into the Northeast US this past winter averaged 1.06 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), less than half of the five-year average of 2.14 Bcf/d. Imports from eastern Canada into the US have been decreasing every year since 2007, the EIA stated. This also points to the need for Canada to get moving more urgently on its own LNG export plans, analysts said.

April 25 (LNG) - Golar LNG, the LNG carrier fleet owner and developer of Floating Regasification and Storage Units for import facilities controlled by Norwegian shipping tycoon John Fredriksen, said that Kathrine Fredriksen had resigned her position as a director of Golar and Georgina Sousa was appointed to the board to fill the vacancy.

April 25 (LNGJ) - BG Group's Australian subsidiary QGC has committed to providing further economic, social and environmental opportunities for indigenous people in areas where the business operates. QGC, which is developing the Queensland Curtis LNG project, will submit a reconciliation action plan to "Reconciliation Australia" for approval by the end of October 2013.

April 24 (LNGJ) - Pivotal LNG, a subsidiary of Atlanta-based AGL Resources, said it entered into an agreement with United Parcel Service to provide LNG fuel for the UPS truck fleet in the Tennessee cities of Nashville and Knoxville. UPS is expanding its use of LNG to 700 trucks nationwide as a transportation fuel by replacing many of its diesel vehicles as LNG fuel use spreads in the US.

April 22 (LNGJ) - The UK LNG import terminal at South Hook, near Milford Haven in Wales, is set to receive its eighth LNG shipment of April. The latest cargo will be on board the 210,000 cubic metres Q-Flex carrier, the "Al Kharaana", which is scheduled to arrive at South Hook on April 28, port authorities said.

April 23 (LNG) - China's March LNG imports marked a third consecutive month of decline in 2013 at 1.25 million tonnes, but were still 11.62 percent higher than the same month a year ago. The Chinese imported a total of 4.17MT of LNG in the first quarter of 2013. Qatar was China's biggest supplier last month followed by Australian and Indonesia.

April 22 (LNGJ) - Italy's Eni, involved in the LNG project in Mozambique and plants in Nigeria, Angola and Egypt, was awarded a key deepwater exploration block in the Egyptian Eastern Mediterranean in the latest bid round in Cairo. Egypt is increasing its exploration activities as domestic gas demand has cut the output of LNG for export at the Damietta and Idku LNG plants. Eni's Block 9, also known as Shorouk Offshore, covers an area of 3,765 square kilometers.

April 22 (LNGJ) - The UK LNG import terminal at South Hook, near Milford Haven in Wales, is set to receive its seventh LNG shipment of April.  The latest cargo will be on board the 216,200 cubic metres LNG Q-Flex carrier, the "Mesaimeer", which is scheduled to arrive at South Hook on April 25, port authorities said.

April 19 (LNGJ) - Japanese LNG imports amounted to 7.73 million tonnes in March, a decline of 4.8 percent compared with the same month a year ago. However, the cost of the LNG was 8.8 percent higher than 2012 at $6.2 billion on a Custom-cleared basis.

April 18 (LNGJ) – Thailand's Map Ta Phut LNG import terminal will receive a cargo from Qatargas on April 24, port authorities said. The Qatargas Train II will deliver 2 million tonnes per annum of LNG to Thai energy company PTT for a period of 20 years beginning in 2015.

April 17 (LNGJ) - Short-term LNG carrier charter rates continue to decline and are forecast to fall under the $100,000 per day mark in the weeks ahead  as demand wanes in the Atlantic Basin and newbuilds join the global LNG carrier fleet, according to shipping brokers in London.

April 17 (LNGJ) - The city of Fukui in Japan hosted the eighth meeting of the Joint Coordinating Committee between Gazprom and the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy under the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. The parties considered the information submitted by Gazprom regarding the investment rationale completed for the Vladivostok LNG project. "The meeting stressed the paramount importance of this project for deeper Russian-Japanese cooperation in the energy sector and addressed further project priorities," the two sides said.

April 16 (LNGJ) - Tokyo Gas sales for fiscal 2012 rose 3.2 percent to 14.2 billion cubic metres, the third straight annual increase recorded by Japan's second-largest LNG importer.

April 16 (LNG) - ExxonMobil and the government of Qatar have signed a memorandum of understanding to expand an agreement they have for LNG development worldwide, including in the Middle East and the US. Qatar Petroleum and ExxonMobil operate the main Trains at Ras Llaffanin Qatarand other facilities such as South Hook import terminal in the UK and the Golden Pass project in the US.

April 15 (LNGJ) - South Korea imported 4.17 million tonnes of LNG in March, up 19.5 percent from the same month a year ago, customs authorities said. Qatar was the main supplier of cargoes, with 1.82 MT delivered last month.

April 15 (LNGJ) - The 216,700 cubic metres capacity Q-Flex LNG carrier "Lijmilya" is scheduled to deliver a cargo on April 18 from Qatargas in Ras Laffan to the South Hook import terminal in Wales, port authorities said. The delivery will be the fifth cargo received in the UK in a 10-day period after a lull in LNG activities.