Shell Postpones Final Investment Decision in Australia: Energy Business Report

It appears that Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE:RDSA)(NYSE:RDSB) might postpone the final investment decision on its Arrow liquefied natural gas project in Australia, due to increasing costs; the company could feed its gas into other LNG projects in the area. Shell oil and gas production head Andrew Brown told an Australian newspaper that “There is no rush for us to enter an FID, and we’ll time this with local market considerations and potentially combine with third parties.” The remarks could signal a shift from Shell’s plan to build its own LNG plant in Queensland in a partnership with PetroChina Company Limited (NYSE:PTR). In the meantime, both Origin Energy and Conoco Phillips (NYSE:COP) want to divest down their interests by 7.5 percent in their Australia Pacific LNG project, so as to reduce their stakes to 30 percent each; they have already unloaded a 25 percent stake to Sinopec (NYSE:SNP) .

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