Buyers Market for LNG Turns Tables on Producers Amid Supply Glut
- Some buyers won't sign LNG contracts with destination clauses
- Asian users looking to promote a more robust spot market
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Encouraged by the plunge in commodity prices, the world’s biggest buyers of liquefied natural gas are demanding more say in negotiations with their suppliers.
Two of the largest utilities in Japan, the world’s top purchaser of the fuel, said they will no longer sign contracts that restrict reselling cargoes by limiting the destination of shipments they buy. Customers elsewhere in Asia are pushing to break LNG’s price relationship with oil and to start regional trading and storage hubs.