Australia’s Woodside Energy expects the global market for liquefied natural gas (LNG) to grow by 50% in the coming decade, its CEO said.

“Over the last decade the LNG market grew by 50%. We anticipate it will grow by another 50% in the coming decade,” Meg O’Neill told the Energy Intelligence Forum in London.

O’Neill said the company had received interest from a lot of onshore gas players and other companies to partner with its Driftwood LNG project and talks were ongoing.

“We’ve got the balance sheet to fund our 50%. We want to keep our 50% in our portfolio so we’re not out rushing to do cheap deals for LNG, because we think we have a quality opportunity that’s ahead of others in the queue,” O’Neill said.

Woodside agreed in July to buy U.S. LNG developer Tellurian TELL.A, including its U.S. Gulf Coast Driftwood LNG export project, for $1.2 billion including debt.

The agreement could strengthen the position of the U.S. as the world’s largest producer of the superchilled gas by securing the completion of Tellurian’s 27.6 million metric ton per annum facility in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Marwa Rashad, Ron Bousso and Robert Harvey in London. Editing by David Goodman and Mark Potter)