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Last week, Atlantic rates dropped below $60,000 per day.
“Spark30S Atlantic rates continued to fall this week, dropping $1,500 to $57,750 per day,” Qasim Afghan, Spark’s commercial analyst told LNG Prime on Friday.
He said this marks the fifth consecutive weekly decrease, and a $17,500 drop over the entire period.
“Pacific rates also declined for the fifth consecutive week, falling by $500 to $73,500 per day,” Afghan said.
European prices down
In Europe, the SparkNWE DES LNG front decreased this week.
“The SparkNWE DES LNG front month price for October delivery is assessed at $11.211/MMBtu, marking the second consecutive weekly decrease and falling by $1.542/MMBtu since the first assessment just under two weeks ago,” Afghan said.
“The discount to the TTF widened by $0.03 this week to $0.175/MMBtu,” Afghan said.
Data by Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE) shows that volumes in gas storages in the EU continued to rise and were 93.24 percent full on September 11.
Gas storages were 92.65 percent full on September 4, and 93.72 percent full on September 11, 2023.
JKM
In Asia, JKM, the price for LNG cargoes delivered to Northeast Asia, for October settled at $13.685/MMBtu on Thursday.
Last week, JKM for October settled at 13.790/MMBtu on Friday 6.
Front month JKM then fell to 13.780/MMBtu on Monday. It rose slightly to 13.785/MMBtu on Tuesday and then dropped to 13.780/MMBtu on Wednesday.
State-run Japan Organization for Metals and Energy Security (JOGMEC) said in a report earlier this week that JKM for last week (September 2 – 6) fell to mid-$13s on September 6 from low-$14s the previous weekend.
The price fell for four consecutive days from the beginning of the week due to weak demand against a backdrop of continued high prices, reaching the low-$13s on September 5, but returned to the mid-$13s on September 6 due to increased buying interest from price-sensitive countries on the back of daily price declines, JOGMEC said.
Ichthys LNG
Earlier this week, Japan’s Inpex told LNG Prime it will reduce output from the first liquefaction train at its Ichthys LNG export plant in Australia due to inspections.
“Train 1 is currently operating safely. However, as Train 1 is using the same equipment (heat exchangers) as Train 2, it has been decided that Train 1’s rate of operations would be reduced to about 70 percent whereupon inspections will be carried out, as a preventive measure,” a spokesman for Inpex said.
Appropriate measures, including inspections, will be taken to ensure the continuity of safe operations, he said.
“As for the restart of Train 2, this is expected for the second half of September,” he said.
“Train 1 will be inspected for signs of similar issues, and overall production is expected to recover to 100 percent by early November,” the spokesman said.
The plant now has a capacity of about 9.3 mtpa due to debottlenecking.