FT Alphaville » An LNG headache, caused by an unconventional gas headache

Australia, we’ve heard a lot lately, is set to overtake Qatar as the world’s biggest LNG producer by about 2020. The first shipment from the big Western Australian Pluto development set sail last month and things looked somewhat rosy for Woodside Petroleum, its owner and operator.

However a story in today’s Australian Financial Review confirmed what many have been thinking for a while: the proposed expansion of the Pluto project won’t happen. The AFR quotes Woodside chief executive Peter Coleman:

“The drilling program hasn’t delivered what we hoped a couple of years ago with respect to enough gas to expand Pluto,” Mr Coleman admitted yesterday, flagging the company would call a temporary halt to its drilling campaign next quarter to take stock of recent results.
“We’ve gone at it really, really hard, we’ve given it our best shot,” he said in an interview.

* username: rupertbu