Sydney — Australia's Woodside is expecting its LNG production to fall in 2021 while it shuts down North West Shelf LNG trains for maintenance throughout the year, the company said Jan. 21 in its fourth quarter report.
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Register NowWoodside has given a total 2021 production guidance of 90-95 million barrels of oil equivalent, with LNG expected to make up 70-72 million boe of that. The figures compare to total production of 100.3 million boe and LNG production of 75 million boe, respectively, in 2020. The company's total production guidance for 2020 was 99-101 million boe. Total production includes those of LNG, crude, condensate, domestic gas, and LPG.
Woodside said its 16.9 million mt/year nameplate North West Shelf (NWS) project will have planned turnarounds for approximately one month each on trains 2 and 4, with train 4 scheduled for the April-June quarter and train 2 for the July-September period.
Woodside said NWS ran at a rate of 46,065 mt/day through the December quarter, which comes to 16.81 million mt/year, a 6% year on year and quarter on quarter rise.
The stronger production was due to high reliability and a major turnaround in the July-September period, the company said.
Production at the 4.9 million mt/year nameplate Pluto LNG was hit by a planned shutdown for installation of a water handling module which saw a daily rate of 13,110 mt (4.79 million mt/year), down 5% year on year and 10% quarter on quarter.
The 8.9 million mt/year nameplate Wheatstone LNG also benefited from high reliability as well as better utilization of offshore capacity to post rates of 27,002 mt/day (9.86 million mt/year), up 4% year on year and 1% higher from July-September, Woodside said.
Woodside's realized price for the December quarter for LNG was $4.8/MMBtu, down $8.1/MMBtu from the same time last year but up from $3.9/MMBtu in the July-September period.
Woodside said 30% of its LNG was sold on a spot basis in 2020. "We agreed our highest ever spot LNG price for delivery in the coming quarter, surpassing our previous record set in 2012," CEO Peter Coleman said.