A Chinese customer of Indonesia’s multi-billion-dollar Tangguh LNG project has asked for agreed cargoes of liquefied natural gas to be delayed, a request that’ll prolong the opening of the plant until May 2009, news agency Reuters has reported.

The news would confirm Asia’s glut of liquefied natural gas and supports Scandoil.com reporting that spillover supplies of LNG have found their way into Europe. The Continent survives on North African, Middle Eastern, Norwegian and Russian supplies of gas.

Scandoil.com affiliate Scandinavian Oil-Gas Magazine presents a special series of articles on worldwide LNG and gas in this month's issue.

Four years after BP’s project got the regulatory nod, the plant faces uncertain demand from among Asia’s shrunken economies, although long-term contracts have been secured. International banks have lent the project $3.5 billion.

Some 7.6 million tonnes of LNG a year were planned from two trains, and about a third of it was aimed at China National Offshore Oil Corp., where a receiving terminal is reportedly not ready to handle Tangguh volumes.

Tangguh plant has long-term sales pacts with four customers: Fujian LNG in China; K-Power Co., Ltd and POSCO in Korea and Sempra Energy LNG Marketing Corp. in Mexico.

Tags: BP PLC