elbows
Well-Known Member
I wasnt that surprised because its happened before. Once north sea gas production had gone past its peak and declined, coupled with the UK deciding to make LNG an important part of its gas plans, and deciding not to bother maintaining a healthy gas storage capacity, this sort of thing was expected. And periods of certain market conditions will influence which countries we get LNG supplies from. And I believe Australia is one of the very major LNG exporters, along with Qatar and the USA.Blimey, we're importing Australian gas now, what a weird fucked-up situation.
Australian gas ship arrives in Kent
The first Australian gas shipment to the UK in six years has been seen arriving in the county.www.kentonline.co.uk
For example here is an article from 2009 discussing the first ever Australian LNG cargo to have the UK as its destination. On that occasion the market conditions which enabled it were a reduction of demand from the Asian nations which were the usual customers for Australian LNG. UPDATE 1-Australian LNG cargoes head to UK, France in May
Articles about the Australia shipment we've received in August are widely reporting that its the first time we've received any LNG from Australia since 2016. I havent yet established why we stopped gettting LNG from them in the intervening period, but it might be that the USA started its own LNG shipments in 2016 and so we were getting all our LNG from USA and Qatar during that period.
I cant say I'm overjoyed about all this stuff, I dont think our energy situation is very secure, and a lot of the planning was based on certain assumptions about globalisation that are increasingly at odds with the way this century is progressing in practice. I'd have preferred us to adopt an approach that drank less market-based kool aid, one that placed more emphasis on gas storage and also an earlier and quicker transition away from gas once our own production went past its peak. And I'll probably grumble for the rest of my life that we squandered lots of opportunities to start building housing stock that was actually fit for the circumstances of the future much earlier.
Here is an example of why a global market based approach to securing supplies when needed can go wrong. On its own this sort of situation doesnt break things, so this article can still feature reassuring noises about global supplies not being badly affected. But its not so hard to imagine that when you end up with lots of these sorts of situations all over the place at the same time, UK planning assumptions can start to end up looking at odds with reality.
Top LNG exporter Australia is told to keep more fuel at home
Australia should tighten measures to curb natural gas exports from one of the world’s biggest suppliers to avoid a domestic fuel crunch, according to the
www.energyvoice.com
Here is an example from earlier this year of the sort of pressures the system is under and dramatic changes to supply destinations that are being seen:
Europe's scramble for LNG leaves Asia starving for energy
Gas shipments once bound for Asia are being redirected to Europe, where Russia's war in Ukraine is driving up LNG prices.
www.eenews.net
And here is a UK government document from June which describes the 2021 LNG picture, including:
That document is a reasonable primer if you are interested in the background, who the global LNG producers are, etc.
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