Australia's C$G-to-LNG export plans slow

摘要

More than US$60 billion of investment in Australia's coal-seam gas (CSG) to LNG projects could be impacted by rising CSG feed-gas costs and broadening world supplies of natural gas, Reuters reported June 3. Industry executives and experts in the country's CSG industry are worrying that export plans are well off track. In addition, patchy-drilling results and rising costs are leading firms, such as Britain's BG Group and Australia's Santos and Origin Energy, to scramble to find additional supplies to meet customer demand. Thus far, the available supply has been tighter than expected, limiting planned exports to 25 million tonnes per year (mt/y) from the 56 mt/y originally planned. To obtain the additional feed gas, operators will drill tens of thousands of wells, but Australian analysts have told this publication, the highest producing wells have been drilled. Each successive well will be drilled farther from the proposed export plants and produce less CSG feed gas on average.