The supply of condensates traded in the Asia Pacific market is not likely to change in the near future from about 900,000 b/d as new condensate splitters in Qatar and Iran will absorb the incremental supply from the two countries, consultant FACT Global Energy said in its November report.
Last year, some 35% of the total 2.5 million b/d of condensates produced East of Suez was traded in the international market, FACT said.
The remainder is absorbed by domestic condensate splitters, which are built to absorb the new supply. These splitters can be found in Abu Dhabi, Iran, Qatar and Saudi Arabia in the Middle East, and in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and New Zealand in Asia Pacific.
Qatar, Iran and Australia have been the key suppliers of condensate in this region for a while, accounting for more than 80% of condensates traded in the export market, the report said.
Smaller streams from Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, which used to be traded in the export market, are now consumed domestically.
Qatar and Iran will each have supply increases, but new condensate splitters -- by 2016 in Qatar and 2017 or 2018 in Iran -- will absorb these increases.
There will be new condensate from LNG developments in Australia such as the Pluto, Gorgon and Wheatstone projects but because the gas is dry, these projects will not yield much condensate, FACT said.
FACT noted there will be marginal supply changes -- "new streams that will emerge but will not generally change the overall supply picture that much." Future condensate production in this region include Platong II condensate from Thailand, Bangka condensate from Indonesia and sour Shah condensate from Abu Dhabi. Production in each case will be about 20,000 b/d to 40,000 b/d.
An interesting development is the emergence of Russian condensate from West Siberia. In August last year, a tanker carrying condensate from Vitino in the White Sea journeyed through the Northern Sea Route to the Pacific and China. More than 400,000 mt of the material moved over the same route between July and October.
Thailand was one of the outlets for the condensate. The volume could reach 1 million mt/year (27,000 b/d) if and when the Russian Yamal LNG gets developed, FACT said.
Sakhalin condensate, produced from Russian gas in the Far East, gets blended into crude and is not traded in the international market.
