Issue link: https://viewer.e-digitaleditions.com/i/103334
industryfocus "At 488 metres in length, Shell's Prelude floating LNG plant will dwarf the huge vessels used to carry the energy source to market." to produce about 3.6 million tonnes a year of LNG for export, from 2016 or 2017. Work has started on Prelude in Korea, but it is expensive. Three joint-venture partners and Shell are planning to spend $12 billion all up. If gas prices, which are linked to oil prices, hold up, the project will pay off. But Shell's spend is the lowest of seven LNG projects under construction in Australia, as some of the world's energy giants join with local companies to pour $180 billion into building new facilities to satisfy demand for clean, cheap energy. Santos and three partners are sinking $18.5 billion into Gladstone LNG, a plant on Curtis Island, near Gladstone, Queensland. Three foreign firms are spending $20 billion on Curtis LNG, also near Gladstone. Local company Origin Energy and two offshore partners are putting $23 billion into Pacific LNG, again in Gladstone. In Western Australia, Chevron is the main player in the Wheatstone LNG project worth $29 billion. In Darwin two global energy giants are building Ichthys LNG at a cost of $34 billion. But the biggest project of all comes with an appropriately monster-like moniker; Gorgon, on Barrow Island, off WA's Pilbara coast, will cost $52 billion, with Chevron, Shell and ExxonMobil taking on the risk. Australia has so much gas to give, but why the sudden burst of activity? "There has been an increase in demand for gas, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region," says Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics (BREE) executive director and chief economist Professor Quentin Grafton. "There's a variety of multinationals involved in making those investments and Australia is seen as a good place to be able to undertake those capital expenditures." More than half the capacity under construction globally at the moment is in Australia, Grafton adds. Floating plants are already in operation elsewhere, but Prelude will be 69