Asian spot LNG prices steady at near two-year high

SINGAPORE (Reuters) -- Asian spot liquefied natural gas prices held steady at a near two-year high this week amid thin trade during the year-end holiday season.

The price of LNG for February delivery to North Asia was flat at $9.50 per million British thermal units (mmBtu), trading sources said.

Spot LNG prices in Asia are supported by cold weather and tighter supplies caused by outages at various plants such as Chevron's Gorgon project in Australia.

Chevron, which halted production at its Gorgon train 1 in late November, is likely to still be seeking cargoes to make up for its production shortage, traders said. Chevron did not respond to multiple queries from Reuters about the project's train 1 status this week.

LNG prices in South America may have crossed the $10 mmBtu mark after Trafigura and Shell were heard to have sold end-January delivery cargoes to Mexico's CFE via tender, traders said. The urgent requirement from the Mexican state-owned utility company is likely to have supported prices in the region, they added.

Egypt will need around 100 cargoes of LNG in 2017, a high-ranking official from the country's state gas board EGAS said this week. Egypt will have to procure about 40 more LNG cargoes after it secured 60 shipments through a tender that was awarded in late November.

The North African country will secure its remaining 2017 LNG needs via memorandums of understanding (MOUs) it has signed with other countries and would pay a total of around $2.2 billion for all of its 2017 LNG requirements, the official said on condition of anonymity.

Reporting by Mark Tay; Editing by Amrutha Gayathri

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