The slumping oil price has carved a chunk out of Australian oil and gas majors, with Woodside Petroleum reporting that profits halved in the first six months of the year while Santos swung to a loss of more than $1bn.

Australia’s LNG exports rose by 2% last month following a worldwide rise in demand for the product.

Gross Australian LNG production increased by 53.2% in the March quarter to 10.1 MMt with the ramp-up of production from Australia Pacific LNG (APLNG) and Golar LNG (GLNG) projects in Queensland and the first cargo from the Gorgon project in Western Australia. The country's LNG exports reached 3.8 MMt during the same period, while Russia's LNG exports totaled 2.5 MMt.

“The decline in prices is unlikely to lead to a significant reduction in production from existing producers because the high fixed costs of building the infrastructure have been paid and marginal production costs are relatively low,” said Ms Heath.

More than $400 billion of proposed energy projects have been delayed since mid-2014 and pushed into 2017 and beyond as oil prices slid about 60 percent in the past two years, according to consulting firm Wood Mackenzie Ltd. The LNG market in particular is facing an oversupply as U.S. exports add to a wave of shipments from Australia.

The first export is a significant milestone for the Gorgon project, which has been hit by delays and a jump in costs since construction started, as it begins generating revenue for Chevron and its partners.

Petroleum exploration activity in Australia has collapsed in the wake of the plunge in global oil prices over the last 18 months, a period in which the country's crude production has fallen to its lowest level in 45 years, according to a report released Wednesday at an industry conference in Sydney.

Global LNG output is expected to rise by a third to about 330 million metric tons annually by 2018, according to Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Most of the new fuel will come from the U.S. and Australia, which is poised to topple Qatar as the biggest supplier. Unlike Saudi Arabia, the largest oil shipper, Qatar won’t be fighting for market share at the expense of earnings.

US oil major Chevron said on Tuesday it planned to sell up to 1m metric tonnes of LNG a year to China Huadian Green Energy from 2020, ensuring 80 per cent of gas from its Gorgon and Wheatstone projects is committed in long-term contracts.

Australia’s $170-billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) construction boom is winding down, and the hunt for new work is picking up.