How NWSOLC replaced a black-box system and cut LNG cargo scheduling from days to hours.
The North West Shelf Lifting Coordinator Pty Ltd (NWSOLC) is responsible for coordinating LNG cargo scheduling and domestic gas nominations for one of the world’s largest LNG projects. The North West Shelf Project has delivered over 6,500 LNG cargoes since 1989, with six joint venture participants, each managing their own LNG entitlements and domestic gas positions.
Coordinating that operation means managing long-term LNG cargo forecasts, pipeline nominations, spot cargoes, cargo swaps, and sudden disruptions from extreme weather across multiple operators who need daily access to the system. The legacy platform they relied on to do it had become a serious liability.
Challenge: a black-box system with no transparency and too much manual work
NWSOLC’s existing system was slow, opaque, and increasingly difficult to trust. Operators referred to it as a “black box.” It offered little visibility into how calculations were made, required significant manual intervention across almost every process, and gave the team no ability to make changes themselves.
With multiple joint venture participants relying on the system daily, the lack of transparency created friction across the partnership. Scheduling LNG cargoes could take days. Responding to disruptions or market changes was slow and resource-intensive.
NWSOLC needed a platform that could handle the full complexity of their scheduling operation, give all participants direct visibility of the data, and allow the NWSOLC team to configure and adapt it themselves without external support.
Solution: automated scheduling, transparent access, and a team that owns the system
NWSOLC selected the EnergySys Cloud Platform, working with reseller partner Elite Energy on the implementation.
The platform was configured to manage the full scope of NWSOLC’s scheduling operation: long-term LNG cargo pipeline gas forecasts, 30-day rolling schedules, pipeline nominations, spot cargo management, cargo swaps, and disruption management. Production forecasts are integrated directly, giving NWSOLC a single environment for both planning and execution.
Previously, manual tasks across data integration, cargo scheduling, and commercial checks were automated. The team can now respond quickly to spot cargo opportunities and scheduling disruptions without the overhead of manual recalculation.
Critically, the platform gave NWSOLC the transparency its joint venture partners needed. All operators access data directly within EnergySys, with clear visibility of how schedules and calculations have been derived. No more opaque outputs from a system no one could interrogate.
And because EnergySys is low-code, the NWSOLC team can implement changes themselves. The system that replaced a black box is now one they fully own.
Outcomes: days to hours, and a team in control
The improvement in scheduling efficiency was immediate. LNG cargo scheduling time dropped from days to hours. Domestic gas nominations are managed within the same environment as LNG cargo scheduling, eliminating the disconnection between the two processes.
The NWSOLC team now responds to market demands and operational disruptions with speed and confidence. Partners have direct access to transparent, auditable data. And the team makes changes to the system themselves, without waiting for external support.
The bottom line.
Coordinating LNG cargoes across six joint venture participants on one of the world’s largest LNG projects demands a system everyone can trust and the team can control.
NWSOLC replaced a black box with a platform that their team owns, their partners can see into, and their schedulers use to turn days of work into hours.
