Fesharaki, who will be addressing the SEAAOC 2010 conference in Darwin later this month, said he believed Australia would become the largest exporter of LNG in the world once a suite of planned LNG and CSG-LNG projects came onstream.
He said a combination of existing projects and new projects such as Gorgon and Pluto along with a number of coal seam gas projects would push Australia to the top spot.
Next year, Australia's export of LNG is set to increase with the start-up of Woodside's Pluto LNG project.
Exports are expected to continue to grow from 2014 when Chevron starts delivering Gorgon LNG and a number of CSG-LNG projects in Queensland follow suit.
Fesharaki also said the emerging shale gas industry, particularly in the US, would not impact Australia's LNG exports.
"It [shale gas] will have an impact on LNG trade but in a way that kind of may not hurt Australian LNG exports because the biggest impact is going to be on the exports in the Middle East which are slated for the US," he said.
According to Fesharaki, the Middle Eastern producers are reluctant to change their policies and send LNG to Asia, giving a special opportunity to Australian players to be able to market their gas.
"It's an unusual situation in the sense that the difficulty of some of the policies in the Middle East is giving the chance to Australia to sign the long-term contracts and be a long-term permanent top player in the LNG business.
"They have given a special opportunity to Australian players to be able to market the gas which would have been very difficult to market if the cheaper Middle East LNG was sent to the Asian market."
Fesharaki added that while the cost of producing LNG in Australia was more expensive than in other countries, the operators including Woodside, Shell, ExxonMobil and Chevron were savvy in convincing the buyers that Australia was a good place to buy from.
"So I think that the outlook looks very good for Australia but we need to keep in mind that the outlook for Australia is good because the Middle East suppliers which are going to the US have not turned the boat around and come towards Asia," he said.
Fesharaki will address the SEAAOC conference on Friday, September 24, with a presentation on the competition and threats from the Middle East to the new LNG projects.
The SEAAOC conference runs from September 22-24.
For information on the conference visit www.seaaoc.com.
