The value of Australia’s LNG exports is forecast to decline to $49 billion in 2019–20 and fall back further to $44 billion in 2020–21, in real terms, driven by declining oil-linked contract prices.

Australia’s LNG export earnings are projected to remain in the $44 to $47 billion range, in real terms, over the remainder of the outlook period to 2024–25, Australia’s Office of the Chief Economist said in its Resources and Energy Quarterly report.

The impacts of declining gas production from the North West Shelf and Darwin projects are expected to be offset by a modest uptick in oil-linked contract prices between 2021 and 2023, and the ramp-up of the Pluto expansion in the final year of the outlook period.

Australia exported $51 billion of LNG in 2018–19 in real terms, up from $32 billion in 2017–18. Higher export earnings were driven by a recovery in oil prices relative to 2017–18, and growing export volumes, particularly from the Ichthys and Wheatstone (which began producing at full capacity in the second half of 2018) LNG projects.

The report notes that the country’s LNG capacity expansion is coming to an end. The wave of LNG investment in Australia saw over $200 billion invested in seven new LNG projects, which were commissioned between 2009 and 2012.

The ramp-up of these projects has seen Australia’s LNG export earnings reach $49 billion in 2019, and export volumes reach 77 million tonnes, making Australia the world’s largest LNG exporter in 2019.