The LNG cost curve has been rising for the past 10 years as result of more expensive materials (e.g. steel), energy costs, labor and upstream reserves (drilling and development costs). According to our database the most expensive LNG projects, measured on an integrated basis (i.e. including the capital costs of upstream and midstream) are over $3,000 per 000 ton or tpa (Figure 13). Legacy projects selling on an oil price index or which have renegotiated prices upwards closer to an oil price link have thus been able to earn very good returns.
All things being equal, that’s yer white elephant!
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal.
He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.
