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The Ichthys plant sent 116 LNG cargoes in 2024, down by 13 shipments compared to the year before.
Inpex began maintenance at both of the Ichthys LNG trains in August, and it expected to restart the units in early October.
The company said in its results report on Thursday that Train 1 resumed production at the end of September, while Train 2 resumed production at the beginning of November.
“The restart of Train 2 was somewhat delayed due heat transfer cooling anomalies that were detected,” the spokesman said.
“While originally scheduled to restart in early October, Train 2 was restarted at the beginning of November,” he said.
The spokesperson confirmed last month that the company expects Ichthys LNG to ship “around the same number of cargoes as last year.”
However, due to the delay in maintenance restart, Inpex now expects that the “total number of LNG cargoes to be shipped in 2025 will be slightly below that figure,” he said.
Inpex previously said that it will replace six heat exchangers at the Ichthys LNG facility during the maintenance shutdown.
Ichthys LNG Train 2 was taken offline in August last year due to a heat exchanger issue. It was then returned to service on October 9 after repairs were completed.
In September 2024, Inpex announced it had decided to reduce Train 1’s rate of operations to about 70 percent to carry out inspections, as the unit utilizes the same equipment as Train 2.
90 LNG cargoes
Inpex shipped 90 LNG cargoes from the Ichthys LNG plant, which is able to produce up to 9.3 million tonnes of LNG per year, in January-October.
During the first half of this year, 65 LNG cargoes left the plant, down by one cargo compared to the same period last year.
Due to the maintenance, there were no LNG shipments in September, while only five LNG cargoes were shipped in October.
Ichthys LNG is a joint venture between operator Inpex and major partner TotalEnergies.
Last year, Inpex also purchased a small stake in Ichthys LNG from compatriot Tokyo Gas to boost its stake from 66.245 percent to 67.82 percent.
Besides TotalEnergies, other partners in the Ichthys project include Australian units of CPC, Osaka Gas, Kansai Electric Power, Jera, and Toho Gas.
Natural gas arrives to the LNG plant at Bladin Point, near Darwin, from the giant Ichthys field offshore Western Australia via an 890-kilometer-long export pipeline.