Tokyo Gas Imports First Gorgon LNG Parcel

Japan's biggest city gas supplier, Tokyo Gas (TOG.BE) Co, said it has received its first liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargo from Chevron Corp's $54 billion Gorgon export facility in Australia.

The "Energy Confidence" vessel carrying about 70,000 tonnes of LNG arrived on Saturday at the company's Ohgishima LNG Terminal in Yokohama, near Tokyo, a company spokesman said on Monday.

Chubu Electric received Japan's first cargo from the project around April, a Chubu spokesman said.

Tokyo Gas signed a contract in 2009 to buy 1.1 million tonnes of LNG annually from the project for 25 years on a free-on-board (FOB) basis.

Production has resumed after the world's most expensive LNG project shut down in April due to technical problems shortly after exporting its first cargo.

Gorgon is a joint venture of the Australian subsidiaries of operator Chevron with a 47.3 percent stake, ExxonMobil and Shell with 25 percent each, Osaka Gas (OSGSF) at 1.25 percent, Tokyo Gas at 1 percent and Jera Co, the joint venture of Tokyo Electric Power and Chubu Electric Power, at less than 0.5 percent.

It will have the capacity to produce 15.6 million tonnes of LNG per year, after a second and third production line, known as trains, are added by 2017.

Reporting by Osamu Tsukimori