Japan’s Osaka Gas expects higher Freeport LNG loss

Japan’s city gas supplier and LNG importer, Osaka Gas, is expecting a higher loss for the fiscal year ending March 2023 due to the prolonged outage of the 15 mtpa Freeport LNG export terminal in Texas.

Osaka Gas takes about 2.32 mtpa of LNG from Freeport LNG’s first liquefaction train under a 20-year deal that started in December 2019. It also has a 10.8 percent stake in Freeport LNG.

However, the terminal in Texas has been offline for some seven months due to an incident that took place on June 8 last year.

The LNG terminal operator delayed the restart of the facility several times.

Freeport LNG is currently in the process of restarting the facility to start producing LNG again for its offtakers Osaka Gas, Jera, BP, and TotalEnergies.

In order to make up the missing volumes from Freeport LNG, Osaka Gas had to buy alternative supplies on the market that resulted in higher costs for the firm and its customers, it said on February 6.

Osaka Gas said that it now expects loss related to the Freeport LNG outage for the fiscal 2022-23 to increase to 149.5 billion yen ($1.13 billion).

This compares to 109.5 billion yen ($829 million) the company estimated in the previous quarter.

The increase of 40 billion yen is “mainly due to the delay in the restart of Freeport LNG’s plant operation and increased costs associated with LNG procurement due to soaring LNG spot prices,” it said.

Osaka Gas posted a 1.3 billion yen ($9.9 million) loss for the April-December period due to increased costs for alternative LNG supplies.

This compares to a profit of 55.1 billion yen in the same period last year.

Most Popular

PetroChina delivers first LNG cargo to Gate under long-term capacity deal

PetroChina International, a unit of state-owned PetroChina, has delivered its first LNG cargo to the Dutch Gate LNG import terminal in Rotterdam, owned by Gasunie and Vopak, under a long-term capacity deal.

First Nations invest in LNG Canada pipeline

Canada's TC Energy, operator of the LNG Canada pipeline, said it had closed an agreement with FN CGL Pipeline, an Indigenous-led investment entity representing five First Nations along the Coastal GasLink corridor.

Spain’s Elcano sells steam LNG carrier

Spanish shipping firm Empresa Naviera Elcano has completed the sale of its 2003-built steam liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier Castillo de Villalba.

More News Like This

BP to sell Browse LNG stake to Osaka Gas

UK-based energy giant BP has agreed to sell a 5 percent stake in the planned Woodside-led Browse LNG project in Australia, which would deliver natural gas from the Calliance, Torosa, and Brecknock fields to the existing Karratha gas plant, to Japan's Osaka Gas.

Osaka Gas wraps up first STS LNG bunkering op in Osaka Bay

Japan’s city gas supplier and LNG importer, Osaka Gas, has completed what it says is the first ship-to-ship LNG bunkering operation in Osaka Bay.Osaka Bay.

TotalEnergies, TES launch FEED for US e-methane project

TotalEnergies, TES, and Japanese firms Osaka Gas, Toho Gas, and Itochu have launched front-end engineering design (FEED) activities for the planned Live Oak large-scale facility to produce electric natural gas (e-NG), also known as e-methane, in Nebraska, United States.

Enbridge continues to expand US LNG pipeline business

Canadian pipeline operator Enbridge has signed an exclusive option to acquire the TTC Connector project, located within the US Gulf Coast LNG supply chain.