Malaysia’s Petronas has reached a milestone at its giant Bintulu liquefaction complex, while it reported a slight drop in its 2021 liquefied natural gas (LNG) sales.
Total LNG sales during January-December dropped 1 percent to 32.74 million tonnes when compared to 33.12 million tonnes in 2020.
Petronas said gross LNG sales volume was marginally lower by 0.38 million tonnes following lower demand due to emergence of a new Covid-19 variant that dampens the economic recovery.
As per the fourth quarter, LNG sales dropped to 8.13 million tonnes from 8.84 million tonnes in the same quarter last year but they rose from 7.52 million tonnes in the prior quarter.
In March last year, Petronas shipped the first cargo from its second floating LNG producer located in the Rotan gas field, offshore Sabah.
The 1.5 mtpa PFLNG Dua adds to the 1.2 mtpa PFLNG Satu located offshore Sabah as well. Besides these two FLNGs, Petronas also plans to build a third unit and it has awarded two front-end engineering design (FEED) contracts for the nearshore FLNG project in Sabah.
Bintulu LNG shipped 12,000 cargoes
Malaysia LNG, a unit of Petronas, operates the giant 30 mtpa Bintulu LNG export facility in Sarawak.
According to Petronas, the facility has shipped 12,000 LNG cargoes since it started operations back in 1983.
The plant consists of nine trains and supplies key demand centers such as Japan, South Korea, China, and Taiwan.
Profit, revenue up
Looking at overall results, Petronas reported profit of 48.6 billion ringgit ($11.5 billion) for 2021, versus a loss of 21 billion ringgit in the year before.
Revenue rose to 248 billion ringgit when compared to 178.7 billion ringgit supported by surging commodity prices, the company said.