Platts: Australia's Queensland expects LNG exports to double GDP growth in 2015-16

Australia's eastern state of Queensland expects a "surge" in LNG exports to contribute to year-on-year economic growth of 6% in 2015-16 -- an 11-year high and double the prediction for next fiscal year, state Treasurer Tim Nicholls said Tuesday.

"The Queensland economy is of course in a period of transition as the investment phase of the large LNG projects nears completion and the production and export of LNG begins," Nicholls said. "The transition is, in effect, the quantitative handbrake that constrains the headline growth rate in 2014-15."

Nicholls, also Queenland's trade minister, predicted state economic growth of 3% year on year in 2014-15, the highest in Australia. He made the forecasts in a 2014-15 state budget speech Tuesday.

LNG royalties accruing to the state are expected to rise from A$199 million ($184 million) in 2015-16 to A$636 million in 2017-18, Nicholls said. This compares to forecast coal royalties of A$2.1 billion next fiscal year, rising to A$3.3 billion in 2017-18.

Three LNG export projects are being built on Curtis Island, off the port of Gladstone. They will be supplied mainly by coal seam gas produced onshore Queensland. MORE