Japan’s Inpex has shipped the 500th cargo of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from its Ichthys terminal in Australia since the start of operations in 2018.
Inpex revealed this milestone in a social media post on Friday.
According to Inpex, the 174,000-cbm FSRU Transgas Power, owned by Dynagas, loaded the 500th LNG export cargo at the Bladin Point plant near Darwin.
This FSRU, which can work as an LNG carrier as well, is expected to start serving the second FSRU-based LNG terminal in Germany’s Lubmin by next winter.
Transgas Power is heading toward Shenzhen, China, its AIS data provided by VesselsValue showed on Monday.
Ichthys LNG is a joint venture between operator Inpex and major partner TotalEnergies.
Also, other partners include Australian units of CPC, Tokyo Gas, Osaka Gas, Kansai Electric Power, Jera, and Toho Gas.
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.
The project sent its 750th cargo in October last year, but this included condensate and LPG cargoes.
Inpex is planning to ship record 132 cargoes of LNG in 2023 from the plant.
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.
Ichthys LNG shipped 112 cargoes of LNG, 21 field condensate cargoes, 29 plant condensate cargoes, as well as 30 LPG cargoes in 2022.
This compares to 117 LNG cargoes and 32 LPG cargoes in 2021.