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According to a statement by Santos, the contract with TotalEnergies Gas & Power Asia Private is for up to 0.5 million tonnes of LNG per annum over a period of 3 years plus one quarter.
The contract will start in the fourth quarter of 2025.
Santos will deliver the LNG supplies from its global portfolio of LNG assets on a delivered ex-ship basis (DES).
Santos managing director and CEO Kevin Gallagher said the contract with TotalEnergies is a new LNG relationship for Santos and builds on its existing joint venture partnerships.
“This oil-indexed contract, along with the recently executed long-term LNG sales and purchase agreement with Hokkaido Gas in Japan, and the mid-term contract with Glencore, demonstrates Santos’ strong LNG portfolio position and customer relationships in the region,” he said.
“Our portfolio is nicely balanced over the short to medium term with around eighty percent of volumes indexed to oil price and around twenty percent exposed to spot pricing,” Gallagher said.
He said there continues to be “extremely strong” demand in Asia for high heating value LNG from projects such as Barossa and PNG LNG.
“Santos is committed to supporting the energy security of our valued customers across Asia, where gas will play an essential role in decarbonization efforts across the region,” Gallagher said.
LNG projects
Santos recently said the Barossa gas project, which will supply feed gas to the Santos-operated Darwin LNG plant, is almost 80 percent complete and remains on target for first production in the third quarter of 2025.
Back in 2021, Santos took a final investment decision for its $3.6 billion Barossa project.
Natural gas will be extracted from the Barossa field, located in Commonwealth waters about 285 kilometers offshore north-north west from Darwin, and transported via a pipeline to the existing Darwin LNG facility.
In addition, Santos operates the 7.8 mtpa Gladstone LNG export plant on Curtis Island near Gladstone.
TotalEneergies is also a partner in the GLNG project.
The facility shipped 22 LNG cargoes during the second quarter, the same as in the second quarter last year and five less compared to the prior quarter.
During the second quarter, the ExxonMobil-operated PNG LNG project in Papua New Guinea shipped 27 cargoes of LNG, the same number of LNG cargoes as in the same quater last year and in the previous quarter.
Santos currently has a 42.5 percent stake in the LNG export plant in Caution Bay following the Oil Search merger, and it earlier this year agreed to amend the terms of sale of its 2.6 percent stake in the LNG project to Papua New Guinea’s national oil and gas company Kumul Petroleum.
ExxonMobil holds a 33.2 percent operating interest in PNG LNG which is able to produce more than 8.3 million tonnes of LNG annually, an increase of 20 percent from the original design specification of 6.9 mtpa.
TotalEnergies and its partners, which include Santos, are also working on the Papua LNG export project in Papua New Guinea.
Gallagher recently said the partners plan to take a final investment decision on the Papua LNG at the end of 2025.
TotalEnergies has a 37.55 percent operating stake in the Papua LNG project, US-based ExxonMobil has 37.04 percent, Santos owns a 22.83 percent interest, and Japan’s JX Nippon holds 2.58 percent.
The project calls for the design of about 4 million tonnes per year of liquefaction capacity adjacent to the existing PNG LNG processing facilities, and located 20 kilometers northwest of Port Moresby.
TotalEnergies boosting LNG businesses
TotalEnergies has been very active this year in singning LNG deals.
The firm recently signed a heads of agreement to supply LNG to South Korea’s HD Hyundai Chemical.
Under the deal, TotalEnergies will deliver 200,000 tons of LNG per year for seven years starting from 2027.
In line with its strategy to grow its long-term LNG sales, TotalEnergies and China’s CNOOC recently agreed to extend their existing long-term LNG supply and purchase deal.
The company announced a five-year extension of its SPA with CNOOC, for the delivery of 1.25 million tons of LNG per year to China until 2034.
Before this, TotalEnergies entered into a heads of agreement with Türkiye’s state-owned natural gas and LNG firm Botas.
Under this 10-year contract, Botas will receive 16 LNG cargoes or up to 1.6 billion cubic meters per year from TotalEnergies.
In addition, TotalEnergies entered into deals to supply LNG to Indian Oil and Korea South-East Power.
TotalEnergies says it is the world’s third largest LNG player with a global portfolio of 44 Mt/y in 2023 thanks to its interests in liquefaction plants in all geographies.
TotalEnergies’ ambition is to increase the share of natural gas in its sales mix to close to 50 percent by 2030.
