Japan’s Inpex is planning to ship record 132 cargoes of liquefied natural gas in 2023 from its Ichthys LNG export plant in Australia.
“Ichthys LNG plans to ship about 11 LNG cargoes per month, on average, in 2023,” a spokesman for Inpex told LNG Prime on Friday.
The facility at Bladin Point near Darwin has two trains and a nameplate capacity of 8.9 mtpa but it is expected to reach a production of about 9.3 mtpa this year due to debottlenecking.
“Our work on debottlenecking is indeed a contributing factor to this increase from about 10 LNG cargoes last year,” the spokesman said.
According to the spokesman, Ichthys LNG shipped 112 cargoes of LNG, 21 field condensate cargoes, 29 plant condensate cargoes, and 30 LPG cargoes in 2022.
This compares to 117 LNG cargoes and 32 LPG cargoes in 2021.
The export project shipped 64 LNG cargoes in the first half of last year, up by 17 cargoes when compared to the same period in the year before.
However, the project underwent major scheduled maintenance program during July and August.
Inpex does not plan large-scale shutdown maintenance works during the fiscal 2023.
According to the Inpex Australia website, the firm aims to close the LNG plant for maintenance during September 8-16, 2023.
Last year, the project shipped its 750th cargo since the start of operations in 2018.
Natural gas arrives to the LNG plant at Bladin Point from the giant Ichthys field offshore Western Australia via an 890 kilometers long export pipeline.
Ichthys LNG is a joint venture between operator Inpex and major partner TotalEnergies.
Other partners include Australian units of CPC, Tokyo Gas, Osaka Gas, Kansai Electric Power, JERA and Toho Gas.
