EnergyQuest has just released its Australian LNG Monthly for March 2022.
East coast gas prices moved over $10/GJ in March and have spiked in April, reaching $19.31/GJ in Brisbane on 9 April. This does not appear to be due to LNG exports but more likely due to closures and outages in coal-fired generation.
LNG demand in North Asia, Australia’s major market, turned down in February, dropping 17.7% below a year earlier. The trend continued in March, when Australian deliveries to China were down 15% from February. However, this was more than offset by additional cargoes to Korea and Japan. Japan is looking to replace LNG imports from Russia and Australia could go a long way helping Japan to achieve this.
Some of the other highlights of the report are:
- In March Australian projects shipped 6.41 million tonnes (Mt) (94 cargoes), the same as the 6.42 Mt (93 cargoes) in February.
- EnergyQuest estimates that Australian LNG export revenue decreased slightly in March to $5.47 billion, down from $5.63 billion in February but up by 88% on March 2021.
- Compared with February, Australian projects delivered 6 fewer cargoes to China and Thailand in March, but nine additional cargoes to Korea and Japan. There were no cargoes delivered to Europe.
- In March, 22 cargoes were delivered to China after delivering 26 in February and 37 in March 2021.
- West Coast shipments increased slightly to 4.6 Mt in March (4.5 Mt in February), with 66 cargoes in March compared to 64 in February.
- Prelude FLNG shipped no cargoes in March but resumed production in April and had shipped one cargo by the middle of the month.
- East coast LNG shipments decreased to 1.8 Mt in March (2.0 Mt in February), with 28 cargoes compared to 29 in February, and 31 cargoes of 2.1 Mt a year ago.
- Notwithstanding high LNG spot prices there were only three spot cargoes reported for shipping from Australian projects in March.
- Queensland imported gas from the other states in March, with flows in an easterly direction for the entirety of the month.
- Queensland short-term domestic gas prices in March were higher averaging $10.75/GJ ($10.05/GJ in February) at Wallumbilla and $11.37/GJ ($10.14/GJ) in Brisbane. Southern short-term domestic gas prices in March were also higher compared to those in February, averaging $10.98/GJ ($9.83/GJ) in Sydney.
- Power generation in March from coal fell to a record low for this time of year, with generation down by 342 GWh from a year earlier. The coal share of NEM generation fell to 62%, down from 66% a year earlier. Gas generation was up by 274 GWh from a year earlier.
Information about the EnergyQuest Australian LNG Monthly is available by clicking here.