Australian oil and gas company Woodside Energy said Monday it had delivered an LNG cargo to Europe on board the Woodside Rees Withers LNG carrier from Australia’s North West Shelf.

The cargo of approximately 75,000 tonnes of LNG (100 million cubic meters of natural gas) was delivered on November 27, 2022, to Uniper Global Commodities SE (Uniper) at the Gate Terminal located on Maasvlakte in Rotterdam, the Netherladns. Woodside said the cargo would contribute to natural gas supply in Northwest and Central Europe.

Woodside Executive Vice President Marketing & Trading Mark Abbotsford said the company was “pleased to have concluded the trade at a time when Europe is in urgent need of alternative sources of gas to replace Russian pipeline supplies.” 

“Events over the course of 2022 have shown that the world cannot take reliable and affordable supplies of energy for granted, particularly as we strive to decarbonize.”

“At such times it is more important than ever that buyers and sellers work together to flexibly respond to market dynamics. Our relationship with Uniper is an example of such cooperation.”

“The delivery of a North West Shelf LNG cargo to Europe also highlights the role that Australian LNG can play in supporting global energy security,” he said.

Uniper’s Director LNG Andreas Gemballa said: “We continue to work on securing the much needed gas supply into Europe from reliable sources like Australia and thus helping to strengthen security of supply during the ongoing crisis triggered by the Russian war.

“In addition to bringing online floating storage and regasification units in Germany, we are contracting LNG from diversified sources into existing and new regasification capacity in Europe. Woodside as a reliable supplier is helping us to bring additional LNG to Europe.”

Fortescue Metals executive chairman Andrew Forrest on Tuesday said his charitable foundation is in favor of a pause on seabed mining, the first time a prominent mining executive has spoken out against the nascent industry.

Forrest said the Minderoo Foundation, which he and his wife Nicola fund with the dividends they get from Fortescue, will back a pause until there’s sufficient evidence that damage to ocean environments can be prevented.

Seabed mining would involve vacuuming up potato-sized rocks rich in battery metals that blanket vast swathes of the sea floor at depths of 4-6 kilometres, and are especially abundant in the north Pacific Ocean.

Mining the seabed in areas outside national jurisdiction cannot begin until the International Seabed Authority, a U.N. body based in Jamaica, decides on regulations governing the industry. Some seabed mining already occurs in national waters but at much shallower depths, for example offshore Namibia where a De Beers subsidiary mines diamonds.

The ISA’s latest round of negotiations, ending this Friday, has been marked by division between member states over whether mining should go ahead at all.

“If regulators can’t apply exactly the same whole-of-ecosystem studies, including flora, fauna, terrain and unintended consequence and the same or higher standards, as we do on land, then the seabed shouldn’t be mined,” Forrest said, speaking at a panel at the COP27 conference in Sharm el-Sheikh.

Last week Germany said it backed a temporary ban on deep-sea mining to allow for further research, joining France, Spain, and New Zealand among countries opposed to the practice.

Alternatives, such as more efficient mining methods and recycling of existing metals, should be explored before seabed mining goes ahead, Forrest said.

Forrest, nicknamed “Twiggy”, is Australia’s second-richest person, with a net worth of around $17.8 billion according to Forbes.

The iron ore ma

gnate plans to turn Fortescue into the world’s biggest green energy group and has previously called on rivals to speed up their energy transition and use green hydrogen.

Britain is set to receive a rare shipment of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Australia later this month, as countries across Europe strive to secure enough supplies ahead of winter.

 

European nations are seeking to diversify energy supplies following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and a sharp drop in Russian gas flows to the continent.

 

LNG tanker Attalos, with a capacity of 174,000 cubic meters, is set to arrive at Britain’s Isle of Grain terminal on Aug. 22, according to data and analytics firm Kpler.

 

“The (LNG tanker) Patris was the original vessel that loaded at the North West Shelf liquefaction plant in Australia. It did a ship-to-ship transfer with the Attalos in Malaysian waters, and the Attalos is now headed to the UK,” said Laura Page, senior LNG analyst at Kpler.

 

Australian cargoes are rare in Europe due to the massive cost related to the distance, and due to high demand from Asian buyers.

 

Britain is home to three of the largest LNG terminals in Europe – two terminals at Milford Haven and another at the Isle of Grain – where the super chilled fuel is converted back into gas, with some volumes transferred via pipeline to mainland Europe.

 

European LNG imports from January to July reached a record above 100 billion cubic meters (bcm), or 75 million tonnes, almost reaching the level for the whole of 2021. Most of these exports came from the United States.

 

In the first half of this year, the United States exported about 57 bcm of gas as LNG, with 39 bcm, or 68%, going to Europe, compared with 34 bcm, or 35%, of LNG exports shipped to Europe for all of 2021, according to Refinitiv data.