Vitol Bahrain and PetroChina have submitted the lowest bids in a tender to supply Pakistan with two spot LNG cargoes in April-May.
Four companies took part in the tender, including TotalEnergies and Enoc Singapore, Pakistan LNG’s evaluation report dated March 25 shows.
Trader Vitol submitted the most competitive bid for the April 21-22 delivery, while state-owned energy giant PetroChina submitted the lowest bid for the May 14-15 window.
Vitol offered a price of $34.6777/MMBtu. PetroChina priced its cargo at $33.5300/MMBtu, the document shows.
Pakistan launched this tender on March 17. According to local media reports, term supplier Gunvor canceled deliveries of four LNG cargoes for delivery in April-June.
Earlier this year reports also said that Gunvor and Eni had canceled deliveries of two March LNG cargoes.
The JKM spot LNG price surged to a new record of $59.672/MMBtu in March over tight supply due to the Russia-Ukraine war. Europe is attracting a huge amount of LNG shipments, mostly from the US.
Pakistan has been steadily increasing its LNG imports over the years and the country plans to build several more terminals to cope with gas shortages for power generation.
Port Qasim currently hosts two LNG import facilities both utilizing floating storage and regasification units.