Shell eyes NWS LNG stake sale

Shell was a foundation participant in the NWS project and now holds a 16.67 percent equity stake in the project.

The company also has an interest in the domestic gas joint venture, which has been producing domestic gas for Western Australia since 1984.

“Shell regularly assesses its portfolio to inform disciplined capital allocation,” a Shell spokesperson told LNG Prime via email.

“We continue to work closely with the North West Shelf partners to deliver value, maximise future performance and meet the needs of our customers,” the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson did not provide further details.

In 2023, a unit of Shell completed its deal with BP to sell a 27 percent stake in the Woodside-led Browse project in Australia, which will send natural gas from the Browse Basin offshore Western Australia to NWS’s Karratha gas plant on Burrup peninsula.

Australia’s oldest LNG plant has been liquefying gas from fields located off the north-west coast of Australia since 1989.

However, these fields are slowly running out of gas and the project is now shifting its focus towards a different business model aimed at processing gas from third parties.

Earlier this year, Woodside completed the permanent retirement of the second LNG train at its NWS LNG terminal due to declining natural gas supplies.

This resulted in a reduction of the Karratha gas plant’s capacity from 16.9 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) to 14.3 mtpa.

Including the retired train, the plant has five LNG trains, launched between 1989 and 2008, and most of these volumes supply customers in Japan.

In September 2022, the plant shipped its 6000th cargo of LNG.