UK energy major BP plans to boost its LNG portfolio to 25 million tonnes per annum and has set an aim of 30 mtpa for 2030.
Chief executive Bernard Looney said the company’s third-party offtakes from projects have made “good progress”.
Looney highlighted the Coral-Sul FLNG project off Mozambique, for which BP has an offtake agreement for 100% of the production, which has now exported 15 cargoes.
He said the Freeport LNG project in the US, which suffered a major outage in 2022 and where BP is also an offtaker, is now back to full contractual offtake.
The CEO said BP’s third liquefaction train, which will add 3.8 mtpa of LNG supply, is in the process of starting up at the company’s 7.6-mtpa Tangguh LNG project in Indonesia.
Looney showed a photo of Tangguh and described this as an “important delivery milestone”.
He said BP has recently extended the production sharing contract in Tangguh to 2055, while work is underway to further grow its gas production and make the project one of its lowest carbon intensity facilities. The company is “very excited” for the future of this asset.
Mentioning the company’s “drive to 25” focus, Looney said: “We remain confident of delivering our 25 million tonnes per annum of supply in 2025.”
BP, which is also expanding its biofuels activities, investing in offshore wind and carbon capture and storage, posted second-quarter profits of $2.6bn (£2bn) today, down from $8.5bn a year earlier.
Looney said BP will enhance its returns further by integrating across the energy value chains, by leveraging its trading and shipping business to optimise value.
The CEO and his team were asked about plans to develop natural gas assets in the eastern Mediterranean, where plans have been revived to develop the Leviathan gas field with a floating LNG production unit.
Looney said the company is “very excited” about the development of Leviathan and the potential for further exploration in the years ahead.
“There is a huge demand for gas both in the region and in Europe,” he said, promising further updates on the project later in the year.
The CEO was also asked about Woodside’s Browse LNG project in Australia and said to think of it as “a very big, low-cost option” for the company. He highlighted that it involved large gas reserves, close to infrastructure and markets. But said BP would have to make the numbers work before deciding whether to go ahead.
On the LNG portfolio that the company could take forward in the second half of the decade, BP chief financial officer Murray Auchincloss named Browse, expansions in Oman, Abu Dhabi, Trinidad, Azerbaijan, Mauritania and Senegal along with developments in the Permian Basin in the US.
He said the company will be very returns driven and choose the right ones to drive forward.
