Australia battered but unbowed

Delays and cost overruns hurt the sector, but Australia is still on course to become a global export powerhouse

The 2014 collapse in oil prices was a heavy blow for Australia's booming liquefied natural gas industry, smashing the profitability of seven new mega-projects that represented a combined investment of about $200bn. But two or so years down the track, four of the projects have been commissioned (QCLNG, GLNG, APLNG and Gorgon), while Wheatstone, Ichthys and Prelude are on their way to completion in 2017 or 2018. In general, the LNG industry in Australia is proving to be resilient and remains on track to become the world's largest over the next two to three years. QCLNG, which became part of Shell in early 2016 following its takeover of BG, was the first of the new generation of Australian LNG