Two terminals at Petronas’ Bintulu liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in Malaysia are undergoing maintenance, a person with knowledge of the matter said on Thursday, slowing shipments from the largest LNG-exporting complex in Asia.

MLNG Satu will restart on May 24, while MLNG Dua will resume operations on May 26, which will enable MLNG Tiga to ramp up to full output, he said.

Controlled by Malaysian state-owned Petroliam Nasional, or Petronas, the LNG complex consists of nine LNG production trains run by four operators with a total capacity of nearly 30 million metric tons per year.

At least ten LNG tankers are waiting to load at the Bintulu terminal, while loadings at the plant had paused for at least nine days this month, according to shiptracking data from Kpler and LSEG.

The data also showed that no loadings took place on May 7-8, 10-13, 16-17 and 20. Comparatively, loadings took place nearly every day in March.

Of the ten tankers waiting at Bintulu, three of them – Seri Balhaf, Puteri Nilam and Seri Anggun – had initial load dates of May 9, 13 and 14, respectively.

An industry source said that loadings had slowed down this month.

The Bintulu LNG complex had experienced production issues in April at its MLNG Satu and Dua terminals. Petronas had said then that rectification and start-up activities were in progress.

Petronas did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Source: Reuters