Plants with benefits

Once Australia has digested its massive liquified natural gas building programme, costs could fall and productivity rise

Collaboration is the new buzzword in Australia's LNG industry, where con­struction cost blowouts and lengthy delays in getting new facilities up and running have coincided with a supply glut and slumping spot prices in Asia-Pacific to make Austra­lian LNG just about the most expensive around. Despite the country's efforts to overtake Qatar as the world's largest LNG exporter by 2018, the future of its gas-export indus­try is far from rosy. Demand in northeast Asia - Australia's key export destination - is unlikely to rebound until next decade and growth in southeast Asian markets is similarly timed. The glut is leading some contracted buy­ers of Australian LNG to renegotiate the price and le