The Shell-operated Queensland Curtis LNG export plant in Australia has shipped its 1000th cargo since it started operations in May 2015, according to shareholder CNOOC.
CNOOC’s gas and power unit said in a statement that the two-train 8.5 mtpa liquefaction plant on Curtis Island in Queensland has exported the milestone cargo on December 18 onboard the 174,000-cbm LNG carrier, Kool Firn.
This 2020-built vessel, owned by CoolCo and chartered by a unit of LNG giant Shell, took about 70,000 tons of LNG.
The project has produced a total of 66.21 million tons of LNG since May 2015, according to CNOOC Gas & Power.
Shell’s QGC business also confirmed the departure of the milestone cargo from the QCLNG plant saying that the company was the first to deliver natural gas from wells drilled into coal seams from the Surat Basin to Curtis Island, and it also the first of the Queensland projects to reach 1,000 cargoes.
Other two LNG plants on Curtis Island include the Santos-operated GLNG plant and the ConocoPhillips-led APLNG terminal.
Besides Shell, CNOOC owns 50 percent equity in QCLNG’s train 1 and Japan’s Tokyo Gas has 2.5 percent equity in train 2.
Back in 2021, Shell also sold a stake in QCLNG to a unit of Global Infrastructure Partners for about $2.5 billion.
Shell, via its unit QGC, owns 80 percent of the QCLNG common facilities that include storage tanks, jetties and operations infrastructure that service the plant’s two trains.