Shipyard struggles

Ichthys managing director Louis Bon has revealed that construction delays at South Korean shipyards have become a bigger risk to the schedule of this LNG project than Australian productivity issues or industrial relations problems.

According to the Australian Financial Review he said the sheer volume of competing projects the yards on Geoje Island have taken on make it "a struggle every day to get priority" for construction of the project's offshore facilities

"There is not a square inch in these yards which is free," Bon told the newspaper.

"It's unfortunate the industry has not been able to find other yards to build their projects, and that's our big, big challenge."

The Samsung yard on the island is reportedly building the project's two offshore facilities plus Shell's pioneering Prelude floating LNG vessel.

Ichthys project operator Inpex has previously said that construction of the production storage and offloading vessel and central processing facility - which will become the world's largest semi-submersible platform - are expected to hit a shared milestone in the December quarter with their topsides to be lifted on to their hulls.

The LNG, condensate and LPG project recently passed the 50% completion mark and is targeting first production in late 2016.

Indian pipeline disaster

Two senior officials from Indian utility GAIL were suspended yesterday after an explosion and fire on the company's underground gas pipeline ended up killing 19 people on Friday at Nagaram, Andhra Pradesh.

"The fire was suspected to have been sparked when a tea vendor lit a stove in the vicinity of what was a leaking pipeline running 4m below the ground," the Times of India reported.

Three people were reportedly still in a critical condition. Gail said the officials were in charge of regional operations and maintenance of the pipeline network.

Iraq update

According to social media this morning, the Sunni forces of the militant group ISIS were 20km away from Baghdad and the Iraqi government had cut water supplies to several major Sunni neighbourhoods in the capital for "days now".

ISIS announced it was establishing a caliphate, also known as an Islamic state, across the land, towns and cities it has captured in northern Iraq and Syria so far.

Mainstream media is reporting that Iraq's army has started an offensive to recapture Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown. There was mention of US troop involvement in those counterattacks.

The government is also believed to have received the first deliveries of Russian Sukhoi-25 fighter jets it purchased last week.