Woodside Stake Next in Shell's Yard Sale?

摘要

It should come as no surprise that Royal Dutch Shell has begun its latest asset divestment drive in Australia. As many other companies can testify, the country's transition to becoming, by 2018, the world's biggest LNG exporter has not been without its growing pains. And those pains have been particularly acute for Shell, the major with the largest presence in Australian LNG, with two projects in operation, two under construction and a further three awaiting sanction. Australia's well-documented cost inflation was underlined in December with yet another $2 billion blowout to $54 billion for Chevron's Gorgon LNG development, in which Shell holds 25%. That confirmed the project as one of the world's most expensive conventional LNG projects at a cost of $3,461 per ton of annual capacity, followed closely by Wheatstone LNG — in which Shell last month sold its interests — at $3,150/ton (PIW Jan.27' 14). The proposed onshore liquefaction plant for the 12 million ton per year Browse LNG project, in which Shell holds 26.6%, was scrapped last year after costs estimates ramped up to an extraordinary $80 billion. Shell has sidestepped onshore cost inflation by selecting floating LNG (FLNG) for its own Prelude development, but this technology remains commercially untested, with analysts estimating Prelude's costs at $12 billion, or $3,333/ton — almost on a par with Gorgon, and raising questions over the cost of the three FLNG vessels now mooted for Browse.