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Last week, both Atlantic and Pacific rates experienced a decline.
“Spark30s Atlantic rates experienced a second week-on-week decrease, falling by $8,250 to $61,500 per day,” Qasim Afghan, Spark’s commercial analyst told LNG Prime on Friday.
He said this is the largest week-on-week decrease in over a month, and marks an almost $15,000 decline in Atlantic rates in the last two weeks.
“Spark25S Pacific rates also declined this week, falling by $4,250 to $78,750 per day,” Afghan said.
European prices down
In Europe, the SparkNWE DES LNG front dropped this week.
“The SparkNWE DES LNG front month price for September delivery is assessed at $11.794/MMBtu, experiencing a $0.814/MMBtu week-on-week decrease,” Afghan said.
This is the largest week-on-week decrease since February, counteracting the price rally seen at the beginning of the month, he said.
“The discount to the TTF remained narrow this week at $0.125/MMBtu,” Afghan said.
Data by Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE) shows that volumes in gas storages in the EU continued to rise and were 90.54 percent full on August 21.
Gas storages were 88.47 percent full on August 14, and 91.56 percent full on August 21, 2023.
JKM
In Asia, JKM, the price for LNG cargoes delivered to Northeast Asia, for October settled at $13.750/MMBtu on Thursday.
Last week, JKM for October settled at 14.515/MMBtu on August 16.
Front month JKM dropped to 14.465/MMBtu on Monday, 13.935/MMBtu on Tuesday, and 13.790/MMBtu on Wednesday.
Asian spot LNG markets recently moved into the October delivery window, a time when key importers like Japan, South Korea, China, and Taiwan typically begin their winter heating purchases, kickstarting the peak demand season for LNG.
Spot LNG prices rose to over $14/MMBtu in mid-August from around $12/MMBtu in mid-July, driven by escalating geopolitical risks amid worsening situations in the Middle East and Europe, S&P Global Commodity Insights said in a report this week.
The unexpected price increase has led to delays in procurement activity, the report said.
“Chinese buyers are now predominantly cautious and remain in a wait-and-see mode regarding winter cargo procurement,” the report said citing traders at Securing Energy for Europe, or SEFE.
Besides higher LNG prices, a healthy supply of domestic and imported pipeline gas has delayed spot LNG imports as well, the report said.