Australia Pacific LNG ships 500th cargo

The Australia Pacific liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant, run by ConocoPhillips, has shipped its 500th cargo of the fuel since it started operations in 2016.

The 174,100 cubic meters CESI Tianjin loaded the milestone cargo and departed the Curtis Island facility near Gladstone on Thursday, according to ConocoPhillips Australia.

“Today we are celebrating the safe loading and sailing of our 500th LNG cargo at the Australia Pacific LNG facility, nearly four and a half years since our first cargo sailed in January 2016″, ConocoPhillips Australia President, Nicholas McKenna, said in a statement.

ConocoPhillips says it has spent, as downstream operator of the LNG project, nearly a billion dollars with Gladstone based businesses and over $7 billion with Queensland businesses since 2011.

The Curtis Island facility has two processing trains, each with the nameplate production capacity of 4.5 million tonnes per year.

The plant mainly ships LNG to China and Japan under 20-year agreements with Sinopec that takes 7.6 mtpa and Kansai Electric that has a deal for 1 mtpa.

APLNG is a joint venture between US energy giant ConocoPhillips that holds a 37.5 per cent share in the venture, while Australia’s Origin Energy also has a 37.5 per cent, and China’s Sinopec holds the rest.

Origin operates APLNG’s gas fields, upstream production and pipeline system, while ConocoPhillips operates the downstream LNG export facility and the export sales business.