Japan May More Than Double February Spot Liquefied Gas Cargoes, Data Show
Japan, the world’s biggest buyer of liquefied natural gas, may more than double imports of spot LNG this month from a year earlier, receiving at least seven spot cargoes, according to ship-tracking data.
The country, which boosted spot purchases after a natural disaster damaged a nuclear power plant last year, took in three cargoes in February 2011, according to data from the Japan’s ministry of finance website.
LNG Imo may reach the Tobata terminal on Feb. 12, and the LNG Cross River may reach Japan on Feb. 17, ship transmissions captured by AISLive on Bloomberg show. The other carriers heading to Japan are LNG Enugu, British Emerald, LNG River Orashi, Methane Patricia Camila and Valencia Knutsen, according to the ship data.
Volumes of spot and short-term cargoes almost tripled to 5.26 million metric tons last year as nuclear outages spurred overseas purchases, according to the ministry of finance data. Spot LNG costs on a delivered basis averaged $794 a ton, equivalent to about $15.26 per million British thermal units, last year.
U.K. benchmark natural gas for next-day delivery, used to price spot volumes to Asia, fell to 95 pence a therm today, equivalent to $15.11 per million Btu, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
To contact the reporter on this story: Dinakar Sethuraman in New Delhi at dinakar@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Alexander Kwiatkowski in Singapore at akwiatkowsk2@bloomberg.net
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