Oman’s state-owned firm OQ Trading has submitted the lowest bid in a tender to supply Pakistan with one spot LNG shipment in January.
State-owned Pakistan LNG launched this tender on November 20 seeking one 140,000 cbm cargo on a delivered ex-ship (DES) basis with the delivery window scheduled for January 8-9, 2024.
Four companies took part in the tender, including Vitol Bahrain, QatarEnergy Trading, and Trafigura, Pakistan LNG’s evaluation report dated November 24 shows.
OQ Trading submitted the most competitive bid for the January 8-9 delivery and the firm offered a price of $18.4600/MMBtu, the document shows.
Vitol Bahrain offered a price of $18.5800/MMBtu, QatarEnergy Trading offered a price of $19.4300/MMBtu, and Trafigura offered a price of $19.6400/MMBtu.
Prior to this tender, Pakistan LNG received offers from traders Trafigura and Vitol for two spot cargoes with deliveries on December 7-8 and December 13-14.
Trafigura was the only firm to submit an offer for the delivery on December 13-14 and it offered a price of $19.3900/MMBtu.
Vitol offered the lowest price of 15.9700/MMBtu for the December 7-8 delivery.
Media reports previously suggested that Pakistan LNG decided only to accept the offer from Vitol for the December 7-8 delivery.
Pakistan gets most of its supplies under long-term contracts from Qatar and on the spot market, however, last year prices surged and Europe took most of the available spot supplies.
In July this year, Pakistan also signed a one-year deal to buy one LNG cargo per month from Azerbaijan’s Socar.
GIIGNL data shows that Pakistan’s LNG imports dropped by 16 percent to 6.91 million tons last year due to high prices.
The country imported almost all of these volumes under long-term contracts from Qatar, or some 6.10 million tons, the data shows.
Spot prices dropped considerably this year, prompting Pakistan and other Asian countries such as Bangladesh to return to buying spot LNG.
JKM for January is currently below $17/MMBtu.