Australia Pacific LNG ships 500th LNG cargo from Curtis Island

The Australia Pacific liquefied natural gas (APLNG) facility, run by US energy giant ConocoPhillips, has shipped its 500th cargo of fuel from its LNG facility on Curtis Island.

The LNG plant is located on Curtis Island in Queensland, Australia.

APLNG is a joint venture (JV) between ConocoPhillips (37.5%), Australia’s Origin Energy (37.5%), and China’s Sinopec (25%).

The Curtis Island LNG facility has two processing trains, each with the nameplate production capacity of 4.5 million tonnes per year (mtpa). The first LNG cargo from the facility was exported in January 2016.

ConocoPhillips Australia President Nicholas McKenna said: “Today we are celebrating the safe loading and sailing of our 500th LNG cargo at the Australia Pacific LNG facility, nearly four and a half years since our first cargo sailed in January 2016 and ten years since we became part of the Gladstone community.

“Over the past ten years, Australia Pacific LNG has played a key role in providing natural gas to local and East Coast customers, as well as exporting LNG to international customers that rely on a cleaner energy source. This is only possible through local employment, spending with Australian businesses and supporting the communities we operate in.

“Since 2011, ConocoPhillips Australia, as downstream operator of Australia Pacific LNG, has spent nearly a billion dollars with Gladstone based businesses, over $7bn with Queensland businesses and contributed more than $23m to community organisations and civic groups through community investment programmes.

In July 2015, Australian Pacific LNG started loading refrigerants to the Curtis Island LNG facility as it prepared for the start-up of the project.

APLNG is one of the largest producers of natural gas in eastern Australia.