Gas News  

Woodside is in the press a bit today, having lost the contract to supply gas to Alcan's alumina refinery at Gove (which means the Blacktip project gets halted). There is some news with a positive spin from the US though, with the odds on them getting a Californian LNG terminal apparently improving - although at this point the announcement is simply that they will be altering their current proposal.

Woodside Energy (USA) and Crystal Energy have agreed to end a heads of agreement for the development of the proposed Clearwater port.

Under the heads of agreement, signed in October 2004, Woodside agreed to provide technical expertise and funding to progress project approvals for the development of Clearwater Port in return for preferential negotiation rights to access the terminal's capacity.

Both companies will continue discussions over the supply of LNG to Clearwater Port, although Woodside will concurrently consider the possible development of its own LNG receiving terminal off California.

The Alcan refinery looks like it will get it's gas from the Oil Search / Exxon fields in Papua New Guinea (assuming that project ever gets the final go ahead) - I haven't seen a map of the proposed pipelines but connecting PNG to both Gove in the Northern Territory and South East Queensland seems like a big job.

Looking at the bigger picture, as very heavy users of electricity I imagine alumina and aluminium plants are going to be in trouble over time as they compete for energy with other uses. Having dedicated pipelines and long term gas supply contracts probably does lower this risk in the medium term though.

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