World LNG trade may rise six times by 2030
Friday, May 28 2004 - 12:17 AM WIB
Global trade in LNG was about 23 percent of total gas consumption, compared with 57 percent for oil, leaving scope for growth, Philip Aiken, the president of BHP Billiton's energy division, said this week.
BHP Billiton is competing with ChevronTexaco, Royal Dutch/Shell Group and others to build import terminals to supply the US.
The Melbourne-based company is a partner in the North West Shelf venture, which has a contract to sell about 3.7 million tons a year of LNG to China's Guangdong import terminal.
"LNG will be one of the biggest areas of growth, with a possible six-fold increase in LNG trade by 2030," said Aiken.
"Access to world gas will require a major expansion in LNG import facilities and a number of operators, including BHP Billiton, are pursuing applications to construct these facilities," he said.
Donald Argus, the chairman of BHP Billiton, and Australian Prime Minister John Howard will hold talks next Wednesday in Los Angeles with California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on supplying LNG to help avert a looming shortage in the US.
"LNG imports in the US have to date been less than 2 percent of total consumption, but recent studies suggest that the US could be importing 80 million tons per annum by 2010," Aiken said.
He said his forecasts were primarily based on data from the International Energy Agency and the US department of energy.
Plans for LNG import terminals in China, where primary energy consumption rose 11 percent in 2003, were "proliferating", said Aiken.
China was likely to look for a diversity of energy supplies as its demand grew, he said.
The Woodside Petroleum-led North West Shelf venture agreed in August 2002 to sell LNG to Guangdong, China's first LNG import terminal, for at least 20 years in an accord worth about A$25 billion.
LNG is a gas that has been cooled to liquid form so that it can be loaded on to a ship for transportation to markets that are too far for a pipeline.(*)