Industrial players see LNG as the next commodity

KUALA LUMPUR: Industrial players agree that liquefied natural gas (LNG) will be the next commodity, provided proper infrastructure and facilities are put in place, coupled with affordable pricing and supported by both supply and demand.

Petronas LNG Trading and Marketing Vice- President, Ahmad Adly Alias, said the state- owned oil company observed that there was a definite global trend moving in this direction, however, there were some constraints especially in the storing of the LNG.

“Until we have full access to all the terminals particularly in Japan, we won’t be in the same space...We are getting there, but it won’t be as fully liquid,” he said during a dialogue session at the 19th Asia Oil and Gas Conference (AOGC 2017) yesterday.

He said the Petronas floating LNG facility ( PFLNG Satu) would enable the corporation to monetise gas resources, which would have otherwise been uneconomical to develop via conventional means.

The PFLNG Satu has a design capacity of 1.2 million tonnes per annum (mtpa), and is expected to boost Malaysia’s total LNG production capacity to 32 mtpa.

Petronas also plans to launch PFLNG Dua by 2020, designed to produce 1.5 mtpa of LNG per year.

Ahmad Adly said at the current price of US$ 5 ( US$ 1= RM4.34) per million British thermal unit (mmBtu), t he LNG became more affordable for new markets, including India, Thailand, Jordan and Pakistan.

“Countries like Myanmar are also interested to import the LNG,” he said, adding that on the spot market, buyers had been taking advantage of the cur rent surplus situation, and Petronas had been seeing a rapid growth of short- term export cargo. — Bernama