Japanese oil and gas firm Inpex announced the first call at Japan for the liquid natural gas (LNG) tanker Oceanic Breeze. The tanker delivered a cargo of LNG to Inpex’s Naoetsu LNG terminal in Joetsu City from the Inpex-operated Ichthys LNG project in Australia.

Oceanic Breeze is owned by Oceanic Breeze LNG Transport, a joint venture between Inpex (which holds 30% of shares) and Japanese transportation company Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha, which holds the remaining 70%.

The tanker was designed to transport 0.9 million tonnes per year of LNG entitled to Inpex from the Ichthys project.

The Ichthys LNG project is the first large-scale LNG project operated by Inpex. The project is located 220km offshore Western Australia and gets its gas from the Ichthys field, which has estimated proven reserves of 12.8 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of natural gas as well as 70.7 million tonnes of oil.

Inpex began production at the Ichthys project in July 2018.

The project is characterised as “All Japan,” with 70% of the approximately 8.9 million tonnes per year of LNG produced by the Ichthys project being supplied to Japanese customers via the Oceanic Breeze.

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Japanese companies are also major participants in the project’s development, providing funding in several parts of the supply chain. These include exploration and production, laying pipelines, maritime transportation, building liquefaction plants and receiving terminals.

The first LNG delivered to Naoetsu from the Ichthys project was transported by the Pacific Breeze LNG tanker in October 2018.

Inpex said in a statement: “Oceanic Breeze’s transportation and delivery of Ichthys LNG to the terminal marks a significant milestone in Inpex’s development of a global gas value chain business, positioned as one of the company’s business targets outlined in Vision 2040 announced in May 2018.

“Going forward, Inpex will continue to strive to serve its customers with safe and stable supplies of natural gas, an environmentally friendly fuel.”