Japan eyeing more LNG imports, Inpex to get Ichthys partner...

Japan eyeing more LNG imports, Inpex to get Ichthys partner

Monday, 27 July 2009

JAPAN looks set to remain one of the big buyers of liquefied natural gas, with Nippon Oil reportedly planning to build a new LNG import and storage terminal in Hokkaido.


The Asahi Shimbun newspaper said on Saturday that the company planned to start construction of the facility in Kushiro city as soon as the next financial year.

It added that the facility, which would cost about 10 billion yen ($A129 million) might be operated in conjunction with Tokyo Gas Company.

Meanwhile, Inpex may have found a potential partner for its Ichthys LNG project in Tokyo Electric Power.

Tokyo Electric, Asia’s largest utility, is aiming to complete talks this year to purchase a 1% stake in the project, Bloomberg quoted the company’s fuel procurement managing director Arai Takao as saying.

While he did not say how much the utility would invest, the 1% stake could cost Tokyo Electric about $US200 million ($A244.7 million).

The Ichthys LNG project includes plans for possibly the world’s largest floating processing platform, which would be capable of stripping out 100,000 barrels of condensate per day, as well as a subsea pipeline of up to 930km in length to the onshore LNG plant in Darwin.

Ichthys will have an initial output of 8 million tonnes of LNG per annum from two LNG trains. It will also produce about 1.6MMtpa of liquefied petroleum gas.

The first shipment of LNG is scheduled to be loaded in 2015.