Australia’s first shipment of gas from the QCLNG gas plant left Curtis Island on Monday afternoon, bound for Singapore.
The project milestone marked the successful commissioning and testing of QCLNG’s Train 1.
Gladstone Observer reported there had been rumours about processing problems and contamination in the plant holding up the commissioning process, which were denied by a QGC spokesperson.
“There is no foundation to the rumours. The time was spent testing all the systems before the vessel was loaded,” she said.
“We really had no idea how long that testing process was going to take.”
The ship Methane Rita Andrea arrived at QCLNG on December 26 but commissioning of the loading dock prevented loading of the first shipment until December 28.
A second cargo is expected to be loaded on the ship Methane Mickie Harper this week.
The QCLNG Train 2 is expected to start production in the third quarter of 2015, which will bring production to a plateau of 8 million tonnes of LNG per year.
QGC interim executive chairman Andrew Gould said the shipment marked an immense achievement for the company.
“The start-up of QCLNG is testament to the hard work, skill and dedication of all our employees, partners and customers including the thousands of individuals who have been involved in physically building the plant,” he said.
“The ongoing support from both the State Government of Queensland and the local councils of our upstream region and in Gladstone has also been pivotal in this development. We thank them all.”
QGC recently partnered with BOC to open a micro-LNG plant near the Surat Basin town of Chinchilla, through which QGC will supply gas to BOC to be liquefied for domestic use in the mining, manufacturing, and long-haul trucking markets.
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