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Spark30S Atlantic freight rates increased by $1,250 to $24,750 per day, and Spark25S (Pacific) increased by $250 to $21,750, Qasim Afghan, Spark’s commercial analyst, told LNG Prime on Friday.
“These are the lowest start-of-the-year LNG freight rates (for a 174 2-stroke vessel) in the last five years,” Afghan said.
Highest levels since October 2023
In Europe, the SparkNWE DES LNG increased compared to 13.753/MMBtu last week.
“The SparkNWE DES LNG front month price for February delivery is assessed at $14.904/MMBtu, reaching the highest levels since October 2023,” Afghan said.
He said the discount to the Dutch TTF price is “assessed at -$0.235/MMBtu.”
“The US arb to NE-Asia (via the Cape of Good Hope) for February is currently firmly closed at -$0.761/MMBtu due to the recent TTF rally and signaling that US cargoes are incentivized to deliver to NW-Europe instead,” Afghan said.
“Similarly, the US arb to NE-Asia via Panama Canal is also firmly closed at -$0.544/MMBtu,” he said.
Dutch TTF price rose this week due to colder weather in Europe and a move by Russia’s Gazprom.
Gazprom halted pipeline gas supplies to Europe via Ukraine on January 1, 2025, following the expiry of the five-year Russia-Ukraine gas transit agreement.
In addition, Norway’s Equinor on Thursday shut down its 4.3 mtpa Hammerfest LNG export plant due to a compressor failure.
Equinor plans to restart the facility, which mainly supplies LNG to European countries, on January 9.
Data by Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE) shows that volumes in gas storages in the EU continued to decline and were 71.79 percent full on January 1, 2025.
Gas storages were 74.74 percent full on December 25, 2024, and 86.12 percent full on January 1, 2024.
JKM
In Asia, JKM, the price for LNG cargoes delivered to Northeast Asia in February 2025 settled at $14.380/MMBtu on Thursday.
Last week, JKM for February settled at 14.290/MMBtu on Friday, December 27, 2024.
Front-month JKM dropped to 14.155/MMBtu on Monday, and it rose to 14.240/MMBtu on Tuesday.