Japan spot LNG contract price hits two-year high in January

TOKYO (Reuters) -- Prices for liquefied natural gas (LNG) spot cargoes for Japan, the world's top buyer, rose to a two-year high in January, official data showed on Thursday.

The average price of spot LNG bought last month was $8.40 per MMbtu, up from $8 in the previous month and the highest since January 2015, according to monthly data from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI).

Spot gas prices in Asia had fallen to $7.75 per MMbtu by the end of January from $9.75 earlier in the month, as oversupplied Japanese utilities sought to offload cargoes and as key European gas benchmarks softened.

METI surveys spot LNG cargoes bought by Japanese utilities and other importers, but excludes cargo-by-cargo deals linked to benchmarks such as the US natural gas Henry Hub index.

It only publishes a price if there is a minimum of two eligible cargoes reported by buyers.

Reporting by Osamu Tsukimori; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Joseph Radford

Comments

{{ error }}
{{ comment.comment.Name }} • {{ comment.timeAgo }}
{{ comment.comment.Text }}