The country exported a record 30.7 million tonnes of LNG to China, worth an estimated A$15.6 billion, EnergyQuest said in its latest report released today.
Deliveries from Australia were up 7.3% from the previous record of 28.6 million tonnes posted in the full year ending June 2020, according to import statistics.
China has now overtaken Japan as Australia’s largest LNG customer.
Australian LNG exports to China of 30.7 million tonnes (Mt) were much higher than disclosed contracts of 19.4 million tonnes, reported EnergyQuest.
The Australian-based consultancy said:
- The projects with China contracts are NWS, Gorgon, QCLNG and APLNG
- All except Gorgon supplied above their contracts
- Also, every other Australian LNG project supplied cargoes to Chinese buyers, even without explicit China contracts
- The additional supplies are from portfolio volumes and spot sales
- For example, QCLNG has China contracts of 3.6 Mtpa but supplied 6.9 Mt to China in FY 2021, with the additional volumes coming from Shell’s portfolio contracts
- GLNG has no China contracts but delivered 1.1 Mt to China, most likely from Petronas’s portfolio
Import prices were down 15% averaging $6.87/MMBtu compared with $8.12/MMBtu for the previous 12 months.
Average Australian prices fell 20% to $6.66/MMBtu from $8.30/MMBtu for the previous year.
The total landed value of Australian LNG imports in FY 2021 was $10.6 billion, down from $12.3 billion the year before, added the consultancy.
Author: Damon Evans
