A BID by the Woodside-led North West Shelf joint venture for a liquefied natural gas deal worth a total of $8 billion has failed.
The Korean Ministry of Commerce Industry and Economics announced last week it had awarded the supply contract, in parts to Malaysian, Yemen and Russian LNG projects.
The contract loss is not expected to affect expansion of North West Shelf joint venture’s production via the planned Phase 5 construction.
However, the NWS will no doubt be disappointed with the contract for the supply of two million tonnes of gas per year, said to be worth $12 million.
The clincher is thought to have been price.
While the NWS gas is considered secure in terms of supply, the Koreans’ selection criteria is understood to have had 70 per cent weighting towards price.
This surprised some considering the importance of the Korean contract.