Malaysia LNG forces force majeure on supplies including Japanese utilities

TOKYO-Malaysia LNG, the majority owned by Petronas, has declared a force majeure on liquefied natural gas supplies to customers, including Japanese utilities, Mitsubishi Corp, which owns a stake in Malaysia LNG, said on Thursday.

A spokesman for Mitsubishi said the move came after Petronas declared force majeure on gas supplies to its LNG production and sales unit, Malaysia LNG, due to a leak.

The potential disruption comes at a time when Japan and many other countries in Europe are scrambling to ensure gas supply for the peak winter demand season, as Russia faces the threat of a cut-off in energy due to the Ukraine crisis.

The Mitsubishi spokesman said that the force majeure was due to a leak on the Sabah-Sarawak Gas Pipeline on Sept. 21, and that it was assessing the impact of the action.

He said that Malaysia LNG has already strongly requested that it take all possible measures to examine and respond to the impact.

He said that there will be limited impact on its earnings and that we will provide full support to Malaysia LNG in order to minimize the impact on the Japanese market.

The date of declarations and volume of supply that may be affected, or how long the supply disruption could last, were not given by the spokesperson.

Petronas did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

The Malaysia LNG project has a total LNG capacity of 25.7 million tons per annum, which is one of the largest LNG facilities in a single location in the world, according to Mitsubishi.

Malaysia provided about 10 million tons of LNG to Japan in 2021, according to Japanese trade data. Malaysia delivered 50 cargoes to Japan from October through December last year, according to Refinitiv data.