NWS LNG CONCLUDES SECOND FULL EXTENSION CONTRACT TO JAPAN
7 March, 2007
The North West Shelf Venture participants and The Chugoku Electric Power Co., Inc. have signed a Sale and Purchase Agreement, under which the North West Shelf Venture will supply between 1.2 and 1.4 million tonnes of LNG (or about 22 LNG cargoes a year) for 12 years beginning in April 2009. The Sale and Purchase Agreement follows the binding Heads of Agreement signed with Chugoku Electric in March last year.
North West Shelf Australia LNG President Peter Cleary welcomed the signing.
"Chugoku Electric is a long-term and highly valued customer of the North West Shelf Venture," Mr Cleary said.
"We are very pleased to continue our long-term business relationship and friendship with Chugoku Electric, which began when we supplied their first ever cargo of LNG in March 1990. Come 2009, our total supply commitment to Chugoku will increase by nearly 300,000 tonnes a year, maintaining the North West Shelf Venture as Chugoku Electric's principal LNG supplier."
Based in Hiroshima, Chugoku Electric is the principal supplier of electricity and natural gas in the western region of Japan's largest island of Honshu. Chugoku Electric operates an LNG receiving terminal at Yanai, and last year commissioned its second terminal at Mizushima with LNG supplied from the North West Shelf Venture.
All eight of the original Japanese customers have now concluded binding agreements to extend their LNG supply relationships with the North West Shelf Venture, which began in 1989.
"It is a great honour to formally renew these relationships, and it is testimony to the reliability of LNG supply established over the last two decades by the North West Shelf Venture," Mr Cleary concluded.
The six equal participants in the North West Shelf Venture are: BHP Billiton Petroleum (North West Shelf) Pty Ltd; BP Developments Australia Pty Ltd; Chevron Australia Pty Ltd; Japan Australia LNG (MIMI) Pty Ltd; Shell Development (Australia) Proprietary Limited; and Woodside Energy Ltd (Operator).
CNOOC NWS Private Limited is also a member of the North West Shelf Venture but does not have an interest in North West Shelf Venture infrastructure.
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