Japan’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports increased for the second month in a row on high winter demand.
The world’s largest importer of LNG received 8.06 million tonnes of the fuel last month, a rise of 7.3 percent year-on-year, according to the provisional data released by the country’s Ministry of Finance.
To remind, December imports increased 13.4 percent to hit last year’s highest monthly volume of 7.72 million tonnes due to a cold snap.
Furthermore, prices continued to decline in January and LNG imports cost Japan about $3.44 billion. This marked a decline of 7.3 percent when compared to the same month last year.
Looking at last month’s LNG shipments, deliveries from Asia from countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia declined by 16.3 percent to 1.71 million tonnes, the ministry’s data shows.
Middle East LNG shipments from sources like Qatar increased by 10.4 percent to 1.42 million tonnes.
Additionally, shipments from Russia increased 2.1 percent to 553,000 tonnes while US deliveries surged 136 percent to 953,000 tonnes.