GLOBAL LNG Asia spot prices fall from 8-month high due to weaker demand

GLOBAL LNG Asia spot prices fall from 8-month high due to weaker demand

SINGAPORE, August 23 (Reuters) – Asian spot prices for liquefied natural gas (LNG) fell this week from a more than The company reached its eight-month high due to weakening spot demand and falling European gas prices.

The average LNG price for deliveries to Northeast Asia in October was $13.80 per million British thermal units (mmBtu), down from $14.10/mmBtu the previous week, according to industry sources.

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Although hot weather in East Asia boosted gas consumption for electricity demand, higher prices limited purchases by some importers in the region. Asian LNG prices could continue to fall next week, 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 gas consumption in the power sector, price-sensitive buyers in South and Southeast Asia are likely to wait to buy until prices fall,” she said.

“Recently, buyers in India and Thailand have failed to award spot tenders,” she added.

The price declines come despite supply disruptions to one of the two trains at Australia's Ichthys LNG plant in Darwin this week, the second outage in the past month.

In Europe, S&P Global Commodity Insights on August 22 set its daily North West Europe LNG Marker (NWM) price benchmark for October delivered ex-ship (DES) cargoes at $12.047/mmBtu, a discount of $0.15/mmBtu to the October gas price at the Dutch TTF hub.

Argus estimated it at $12.00/mmBtu, while Spark Commodities estimated the September price at $11.794/mmBtu.

Gas prices in Europe fell on Friday due to cooler temperatures and weak renewable energy production. NG/EU Temperatures are also expected to drop across Europe this weekend, Kpler's Subasic said, adding that strong renewable electricity generation would likely reduce demand for gas-fired power.

Meanwhile, feed gas flows in the U.S. have remained stable and regulatory filings show that the Phase 3 terminals at Corpus Christi and Plaquemines are getting closer to receiving their first feed gas and producing their first LNG, consistent with their planned start-up dates, said Samuel Good, head of LNG pricing at commodity pricing agency Argus.

For LNG cargoes, Atlantic rates fell for the second week in a row to $61,500 a day on Friday, said Spark Commodities analyst Qasim Afghan. This was the biggest weekly decline in over a month and represents a drop of over $15,000 in the past two weeks, he added.

Rates in the Pacific also fell, reaching USD 78,750/day.

(Reporting by Emily Chow; Editing by Sonia Cheema)