Japan's JERA imports first LNG cargo shipped from Chevron's Wheatstone site

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's JERA Co, the fuel-buying joint venture of Tokyo Electric Power and Chubu Electric Power , said it received the first liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargo shipped from Chevron's (CVX.N) Wheatstone project in Australia.

The tanker "Asia Venture," carrying about 70,000 tonnes of LNG, arrived on Sunday at Tokyo Electric Power's Futtsu LNG terminal in Chiba prefecture on Tokyo Bay, said a spokesman for JERA, the world's biggest LNG buyer, on Monday.

Chevron said last month that the Wheatstone LNG project, which started production in early October, shipped its first cargo to JERA.

JERA has contracts to buy 5.2 million tonnes per year of LNG from the Wheatstone project.

Wheatstone has two units, which at full capacity will supply 8.9 million metric tonnes of LNG a year to customers in Asia. After the second train starts up in 2018, JERA will receive around six LNG cargoes per month from the project, a company official said.

(Reporting by Osamu Tsukimori; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)