North Slope Producers No Strangers to LNG Projects
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North Slope producers no strangers to LNG projects The big three North Slope oil and gas producers 260 degrees, condensing the gas into a liquid working toward a multibillion‐dollar Alaska that's more cost‐effective to ship long distances. liquefied natural gas export project have ConocoPhillips debuted its technology at its substantial LNG investments across the globe. In Nikiski, Alaska, LNG plant in 1969, and the some cases these investments go back decades. process is running at five other plants from Point Fortin, Trinidad, to Darwin, Australia. Four LNG Taken together, ExxonMobil, BP and plants ConocoPhillips own stakes in LNG production under construction worldwide will use it plants in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, as well. Australia, Africa, the Caribbean and North Though a hot energy commodity these days, America. LNG is a side dish on the menu of activities these In addition, ExxonMobil owns an interest in two three petroleum companies are engaged in of the dozen or so plants under construction worldwide. worldwide, while ConocoPhillips has a piece of a In the companies' annual reports, the LNG third project. financials are too small within their global Each company also is in the LNG importing operations to earn a dedicated line on the come statements. However, in the business — investors in terminals where liquid corporate in text, LNG merits mention as drawing investment methane can be received, stored, warmed back into a vapor then routed into the gas pipeline capital as well as one of the many possible grid. ExxonMobil in Texas, the United Kingdom growth areas in the companies' portfolios. and Italy; ConocoPhillips in Texas; and BP in LNG production is a business dominated by China — the only Western oil company with major multinational petroleum companies like such an investment in China. these three Alaska operators, and by national oil ConocoPhillips has a third LNG enterprise the companies in such countries as Qatar, Indonesia, other two companies lack in their portfolios: It Malaysia, Nigeria and Algeria. owns one of the muscular liquefaction Among the multinationals, Shell is an even technologies that superchills methane to minus bigger global LNG player than the three Alaska November 2013 North Slope producers no strangers to LNG projects Source: Office of the Federal Coordinator, Alaska Natural Gas Transportaon Projects North Slope operators. Shell makes LNG in The patient endurance of a long‐distance Brunei, Malaysia, Australia, Russia, Qatar, Oman runner. and Nigeria, with Trinidad and Tobago as well as Access to bales of money, through both Peru coming soon when Shell closes its purchase strong cash flow and stellar of Spanish oil company Repsol's interest in the creditworthiness. plants there. A risk‐taking DNA. Other major international oil and gas companies with substantial investments in LNG plants Tackling LNG investments can entail vast scales include Chevron (United States), Total (France), of time, cost and risk. Eni (Italy), Statoil (Norway) and INPEX (Japan). On time, Joseph C. Geagea, president of Chevron The qualities needed to shine in the LNG Gas and Midstream, put it this way at a Tokyo industry are the very same traits that oil LNG conference in September 2013: On average, wildcatters need to grow into global petroleum a project takes 18 years from gas discovery to 1 producers: the first LNG shipment setting sail for market. November 2013 2 Office of the Federal Coordinator, Alaska Natural Gas Transportaon Projects Source: Office of the Federal Coordinator, Alaska Natural Gas Transportaon Projects On cost, a typical project will cost billions of On risk, where to start. Here's a sample: dollars, even tens of billions, not counting the Risks of lengthy development — including expense of building out the production fields years before any positive cash flow as well as that will feed natural gas to the plant. LNG potential political, regulatory and litigation developments are among the most costly capital snags. projects a petroleum company will undertake. And lately, particularly for the eight projects Risks of a long construction period — under construction in Australia and Papua New including cost overruns, weather delays, Guinea, the price tag has been soaring. labor problems and, again, litigation. What if the timing gets mismatched for different The cost of building an LNG plant doubled from components of the development, such as the the early 2000s to today, said consultants PFC gas fields are ready but the LNG plant isn't, Energy during an Alaska seminar in August 2013. or tankers launch from the shipyard before The cost of developing gas fields to support the the LNG plant is done? liquefaction plants also has jumped, PFC Energy said. 3 November 2013 North Slope producers no strangers to LNG projects Source: PFC Energy Technology risks — glitch‐prone equipment mile pipeline, and a liquefaction plant with LNG that delays startup, hampers production or storage and a two‐berth tanker terminal at causes contracted deliveries to be missed. Nikiski in Southcentral Alaska. Price risks — the LNG is pegged to a price The export plant would have the capacity to index that doesn't support the cost of make 15 million to 18 million metric tons of LNG production, or markets change during the annually, the equivalent of 2 billion to 2.4 billion multiyear development and construction. cubic feet a day of gas. Below we look at the global LNG investments of This would be massive undertaking for the three ExxonMobil, BP and ConocoPhillips, the three producers. companies considering the Alaska LNG project ExxonMobil and BP are part owners of larger with their partner, Canadian pipeline firm LNG plants, although those plants scaled up over TransCanada, which has no liquefaction time. ExxonMobil is investing in a similar‐sized investments. project called Gorgon under construction in Their early concept envisions a $45 billion to $65 Australia right now.2 ConocoPhillips, the smallest billion project that includes a gas treatment of the three, has no other LNG projects in its plant on Alaska's North Slope, a roughly 800‐ portfolio on the same scale as Alaska LNG. November 2013 4 Office of the Federal Coordinator, Alaska Natural Gas Transportaon Projects In all, the three companies own stakes in more than 40 percent of the LNG production trains operating worldwide today — a typical LNG plant features several LNG trains running side by Exisng LNG plants side, each liquefying methane independent of Indonesia each other. Name Ownership Plant Size Year first Because almost all of those investments involve minority interests in the trains, the companies' Arun 30% 4.2 mtpa* 1978 actual share of today's global LNG plant Qatar nameplate capacity totals about 13 percent. Qatargas 1 10% 9.5 mtpa 1997 EXXONMOBIL — RasGas 1 25% 6.6 mtpa 1999 RasGas 2 30% 14.1 mtpa 2004 QATAR, INDONESIA: 14 TRAINS RasGas 3 30% 15.6 mtpa 2009 In the 1980s and 1990s, Qatar's leaders decided Qatargas 2 train 1 30% 7.8 mtpa 2009 the Mideast nation's ownership of the Qatargas 2 train 2 18% 7.8 mtpa 2009 spectacular North Field — the world's largest dry ‐gas field — would become a cornerstone of Plants under construcon their 21st century economy.3 Papua New Guinea Name Ownership Plant Size Startup LNG exports became the means, and PNG LNG 41.5% 6.9 mtpa 2014 ExxonMobil became the biggest outside investor propelling Qatar's leap to the top among the Australia world's LNG makers. It owns a share in 12 of Gorgon 25% 15.6 mtpa 2015 Qatar's 14 LNG trains. Qatar's first LNG trains cranked up in the late Possible future projects 1990s. Australia Scarborough Texas Golden Pass Its 2003 production of about 14 million metric Russia Sakhalin 1 tons per year — about 2 billion cubic feet a day Alaska Alaska LNG when warmed back into a vapor — already Canada Brish Columbia ranked Qatar as the fourth‐largest LNG exporter * million metric tons per annum in the world, behind Malaysia, Indonesia and Source: Office of the Federal Coordinator research Algeria.4 and a 25 percent share of Rasgas 1's two trains. By 2011, Qatar could produce 77 mtpa, more than three times No. 2 Malaysia's output. The investments continued after the Mobil and Exxon merger. The company has stakes in seven Exxon's entrée into Qatar and some of its other of the nine LNG trains Qatar commissioned LNG ventures came via Mobil Oil. Exxon and since, all from 2004 through 2011. National oil Mobil, two massive products of the U.S. company Qatar Petroleum is majority owner in Supreme Court breakup of Standard Oil 100 each train. years ago, merged in 1999. ExxonMobil also has partnered with Qatar Mobil was an investor in Qatar's first LNG plants: Petroleum in three LNG terminals built to import A 10 percent stake in Qatargas 1's three trains Qatari LNG. One is South Hook in Wales. A 5 November 2013 North Slope producers no strangers to LNG projects second is Adriatic LNG in Italy. The third is in 1998 — they were the Ohio and Indiana arms Golden Pass in Texas. of the old Standard Oil, respectively. ExxonMobil's only LNG plant outside of Qatar is Like Exxon in its Mobil merger, BP picked up an a 30 percent interest in two trains at Indonesia's LNG project with its Amoco merger. Arun plant. Arun opened in 1978. But it is slated to stop exporting in 2014 to become an LNG Trinidad and Tobago import terminal for Indonesia's growing 5 Amoco was nearing completion of its Trinidad economy. and Tobago LNG plant when it merged with BP. Arun also came from the Mobil side of the The plant opened in 1999.