Origin, Australia Pacific LNG in another domestic gas move

Origin Energy said on Thursday it has bought more gas for domestic markets from the Australia Pacific LNG plant it operates with ConocoPhillips.

This is another domestic deal from the east coast LNG producers including Australia Pacific LNG following pressure from the government to help ease domestic shortages which have been pushing prices higher in Australia.

Origin has agreed to buy 41 petajoules (PJ) of gas from APLNG over the next 14 months, raising APLNG’s sales into the home market to 186 PJ in 2018.

This represents almost 30 percent of Australian east coast domestic gas market demand, up from 20 percent in 2017.

“Our east coast portfolio needed more gas to allow Origin to meet demand from large customers who rely on gas for their businesses, and also to fuel peaking power stations which are crucial to security of electricity supply – particularly as we head into the summer period,” Origin executive general manager energy supply and operations, Greg Jarvis said.

Origin says it is a major supplier of gas to the domestic market and signed more than 760 agreements with large customers last year. Earlier this year, Origin also announced it would supply gas to South Australia’s Pelican Point power station to bring another 240 MW of generation capacity back into service.

Australia Pacific LNG chief executive officer Warwick King said this additional gas forms part of the LNG industry’s commitment to make more gas available to the domestic market to help address the forecast shortfall of gas in 2018.