SYDNEY: Britain’s BG Group is preparing to deliver a first commercial liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargo to China from its new $20.4 billion Queensland Curtis LNG project in Australia.
The British energy firm is looking to its Queensland Curtis project to help to turn around its fortunes as it has been hit by LNG production troubles in Egypt and a slump in oil prices.
The Queensland export facility, which is targeting the Asian market and took four years to build, is expected to reach a plateau production level of 8 million tonnes of LNG a year in 2016.
BG demonstrated the value of the project earlier this month when it sold the pipeline feeding the facility to Australia’s APA Group for $5 billion, a huge premium to its $1.6 billion book value.
BG said the gas producer has been loading the Methane Rita Andrea vessel at its Gladstone facility since Sunday and the tanker is expected to start its journey to China shortly.
The pipeline connects BG’s natural gas fields in southern Queensland to the export facility and BG said it would pay APA an annual tariff for use.
