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“Global LNG freight rates continue to hit new record lows this week, with the Spark30S (Atlantic) assessment dropping $5,500 to $3,500 per day – the lowest rates on record for a 174 2-stroke vessel, as increased vessel availability continues to apply downward pressure on rates,” Qasim Afghan, Spark’s commercial analyst, told LNG Prime on Friday.
He said Pacific freight rates have largely followed suit, with the Spark25S (Pacific) assessment dropping $4,000 to reach a record low of $11,500 per day.
“Spark’s calculated freight rates for 160 vessels in the Atlantic basin have turned negative, with the Spark30-160 (Atlantic) at -$2,250 per day, indicating that shipowner earnings don’t fully cover the fuel expenses associated with ballasting their vessel back to load port for a round-trip voyage in the Atlantic basin,” Afghan said.
“The last and only other time this has happened was in February 2022, just before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, when Spark30-160 priced in at -$1,250 per day,” he said.
US, Qatari LNG cargoes heading to Europe
In Europe, the SparkNWE DES LNG increased compared to $14.594/MMBtu last week.
“The SparkNWE DES LNG front month price for February delivery rose by $0.745 to $15.339/MMBtu this week, reaching its highest point since October 2023 as the TTF continues to rally,” Afghan said.
He said the discount to the TTF widened for a fifth consecutive week, widening by $0.10 to -$0.475/MMBtu and indicating continued increased demand for LNG delivery slots in NW-Europe.
“The US arb to NE-Asia (via the Cape of Good Hope) for February slightly narrowed this week to -$1.368/MMBtu, but still continuing to strongly signal that US cargoes are incentivized to deliver to Europe instead of Asia,” Afghan said.
“With NW-Europe DES LNG prices at year-highs, the Qatar front month arb to NE-Asia remains extremely marginal, pricing in at $0.004/MMBtu and continuing to signal that Europe is an equally profitable delivery region for Qatari cargoes,” he said.
Data by Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE) shows that volumes in gas storages in the EU declined considerably from last week and were 54.65 percent full on January 29.
Gas storages were 57.60 percent full on January 22, and 70.95 percent full on January 29, 2024.
JKM
In Asia, JKM, the price for LNG cargoes delivered to Northeast Asia in March 2025 settled at $14.225/MMBtu on Thursday.
Last week, JKM for February settled at 14.110/MMBtu on Friday, January 24.
Front-month JKM dropped to 14.020/MMBtu on Monday and 13.985/MMBtu on Tuesday, and it rose to 14.295/MMBtu on Wednesday.
State-run Japan Organization for Metals and Energy Security (JOGMEC) said in a report earlier this week that JKM “rose to high-$13s on January 24 from mid-$13s the previous weekend (January 17).”
“JKM rose to high-$14s in the first half of the week due to rising global gas prices, but fell to the high-$13s in the weekend as sluggish demand in Northeast Asia remained unchanged,” JOGMEC said.
Freeport LNG
Freeport LNG, the operator of the 15 mtpa liquefaction plant in Texas, has resumed operations following a power outage.
“Freeport LNG’s liquefaction production operations have safely resumed,” a spokeswoman for Freeport LNG told LNG Prime on Monday.
She previously said that the plant’s production operations were taken offline due to intermittent Centerpoint Energy power interruptions beginning early Tuesday morning last week.
According to its AIS data provided by VesselsValue, the 173,400-cbm Flex Endeavour loaded a cargo at Freeport LNG and left the facility on Sunday.