By Oleg Vukmanovic
MILAN, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Australia's North West Shelfliquefied natural gas (LNG) export plant on Monday launched atender to sell at least five cargoes from April, a source withdirect knowledge of the matter said.
The 16.3 million tonne per year capacity plant expects tosell the supply in two tranches with final bids for the cargoesdue by Jan. 26, the source said.
The unexpected tender signals a delay of around three monthsto reforms of how NWS will market supply, which will see theplant's six stakeholders be allowed to market their equity shareof spot cargoes directly.
NWS puts the spot supply up for grabs in an open tenderingprocess, in which stakeholders compete with other companies topurchase supply.
The six stakeholders are BHP Billiton, BP,Chevron, Japan Australia LNG, Shell andWoodside, which operates the plant.
The facility launched a separate tender to sell threecargoes on Jan. 5, bids for which closed to today. A winner isset to be announced on Friday. (Reporting by Oleg Vukmanovic, editing by Louise Heavens)