Asia spot LNG prices ease from 8-month top on weaker demand
Asian spot liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices eased this week from a more than 8-mos top on the back of easing spot demand and as European gas prices also fell.
The average LNG price for October delivery into northeast Asia LNG-AS was at $13.80/million British thermal units (MMBtu), industry sources estimated, down from $14.10/ MMBtu last week.
Despite hot weather in east Asia driving up gas consumption for power demand, the higher prices limited buying from some importers in the region. Asian LNG prices could continue to drop next week as well, said Ana Subasic, natural gas and LNG analyst at data and analytics firm Kpler.
"While there may be some spot demand from Japan and South Korea due to high power sector gas consumption, price-sensitive buyers in South and Southeast Asia are expected to hold off on purchases until prices fall," she said.
"Recently, buyers in India and Thailand have failed in awarding spot tenders," she added.
The price declines come despite supply disruptions from one of the two trains at Australia's Ichthys LNG plant in Darwin this week, its second outage in the past month.
In Europe, S&P Global Commodity Insights assessed its daily North West Europe LNG Marker (NWM) price benchmark for cargoes delivered in October on an ex-ship (DES) basis at $12.047/MMBtu on Aug. 22, a $0.15/MMBtu discount to the October gas price at the Dutch TTF hub.
Argus assessed it at $12.00/MMBtu, while Spark Commodities assessed the September price at $11.794/MMBtu.
Europe gas prices eased on Friday amid cooler temperatures and weak renewables generation. NG/EU Temperatures across Europe are also seen dropping this weekend, said Kpler's Subasic, adding that strong renewable power generation is likely to reduce the need for gas-fired power.
Meanwhile, U.S. feedgas flows have been stable, while regulatory filings show Corpus Christi's stage 3 and the Plaquemines terminals are stepping closer to first feedgas receipts and first LNG production, in line with their planned startup dates, said Samuel Good, head of LNG pricing at commodity pricing agency Argus.
On LNG freight, Atlantic rates fell for a second straight week to $61,500/day on Friday, said Spark Commodities analyst Qasim Afghan. This is the biggest week-on-week decrease in over a month, and marks an over $15,000 decline in the last two weeks, he added.
Pacific rates also declined, easing to $78,750/day.
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