Liquefied natural gas

Development of Russia

On November 22, 2013, the Russian State Duma passed a law to liberalize the export of liquefied natural gas from Russia, which will break the monopoly of LNG exports by Gazprom for many years.

The above laws came into force on December 1, 2013. According to the regulations, Russia will have two types of energy companies to obtain LNG export rights. Companies that hold a federal mineral resource extraction license issued before January 1, 2013, and are allowed to build liquefied natural gas plants, or use the extracted natural gas to produce natural gas. In addition, companies with more than 50% of the state capital have the right to exploit mineral resources in the inland sea, territorial sea and continental shelf, including the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, and liquefied the gas extracted or obtained under product-sharing agreements.

According to the law, the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade transferred the power to issue LNG licenses to the Ministry of Energy. Natural gas exporters will provide information to the Russian Energy Ministry on the export of natural gas in accordance with the procedures set by the Russian government, in order to coordinate the export of liquefied natural gas and avoid competition among Russian exporters.

The Russian government hopes that the liberalisation of LNG exports will help increase Russia's share of the world gas market and keep gas prices stable.

In the first 10 months of 2013, Russian natural gas exports amounted to 163.353 billion cubic meters, of which long-distance exports increased by 17.7% year-on-year to 109.871 billion cubic meters; Close-up exports fell 16 percent year-on-year to 41.663 billion cubic meters. In addition, LNG exports to the Asia-Pacific region in the first 10 months fell slightly by 1.6% year-on-year to 11.815 billion cubic meters. 

Australian development

China National Offshore Oil Corp., one of the country's three state-owned oil companies, is issuing 10-year dollar-denominated bonds at an initial guide rate of about 210 dots for the same period U.S. Treasury notes. This is the first time that the Group has raised debt in the international market to fund its investment in the Curtis liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in Queensland, Australia.

The sale documents do not reveal the amount of debt sold, only the benchmark size. In the dollar bond market, the benchmark size generally refers to $500 million or more.

Cnooc Group is a central supergiant state-owned enterprise and China's largest offshore oil and gas producer, headquartered in Beijing. The main business includes oil and gas exploration and development, professional technical services, refining and chemical sales and fertilizer, natural gas and power generation, financial services, new energy and other six business segments.

The group is the parent of Hong Kong-listed CNOOC Ltd., which has sold debt in the international bond market several times, issuing US $4 billion in four tranches of US dollar bonds of different maturities in early May, but this is the first time CNOOC has sold debt overseas.

CNOOC Curtis Funding No. 1 Pty Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of CNOOC Group, was the issuer of the bond, with CNOOC Group providing a guarantee, according to the sales document. The bonds are rated preliminary "Aa3" by Moody's and preliminary "AA-" by Standard & Poor's and are scheduled to be listed on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong.

CNOOC plans to use the proceeds from the bond sale for general corporate purposes for its CNOOC (AUS) Investment or subsidiaries, part of which will be used to acquire the Curtis LNG project, according to the filing.

Cnooc signed a $1.93 billion binding agreement with BP PLC in May to take a 40 percent stake in the Curtis LNG project, raising its total interest to 50 percent from 10 percent and including a 20-year supply contract.

Bank of China, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and UBS acted as joint global coordinators for the bond sale, according to the sales document. Together with ICBC International, CCB International, ABC Internaitonal and BOCOM International, Acting as joint bookkeeper and joint lead manager for the bond issue, which is expected to be priced as soon as today.

American development

On February 21, 2022, the latest annual liquefied natural gas (LNG) market outlook report released by international energy giant Shell believes that the United States is expected to become the world's largest LNG exporter in 2022. According to the Russian website on February 23, 2022, the United States liquefied natural gas exports continued to rise in 2021, an increase of 24 million tons over the previous year, of which nearly half were exported to Asia and about one-third were exported to Europe。