Azernews.Az

By Bloomberg

Asia will receive a spot liquefied natural gas cargo from Europe after a three-month gap.

The Woodside Goode was last seen about 30 miles from Korea Gas Corp.’s Samcheok terminal on South Korea’s east coast after loading gas from storage at Belgium’s Zeebrugge facility on April 2-4, transmissions captured by IHS Fairplay on Bloomberg showed. It is the first re-export to Asia since the Lena River arrived at the end of January.

After boosting imports from European storage tanks over the past three years for power generation, buyers from Asia slowed purchases earlier this year as declining oil prices pushed down the cost of LNG and demand fell. That narrowed the premium of spot LNG in Asia to that in Europe by 76 percent in the past year.

“I don’t believe this cargo is a price-incentivized re- export,” May Mannes, Stavanger, Norway-based head of gas and LNG analysis at Eclipse Energy Group, said Wednesday by e-mail. “I don’t see the arbitrage re-opening for some time to come as the market is well supplied.”

LNG for delivery to southwest Europe in four to eight weeks cost $6.75 a million British thermal units in the week to May 4, compared with $11.70 a year ago, according to assessments by New York-based World Gas Intelligence. The northeast Asian price was $7.35 a million Btu on May 4, down from $14.15 a year ago.

Belgium doesn’t produce any LNG and was the largest re- exporter after Spain last year, according to the Paris-based International Group of LNG Importers, or GIIGNL. South Korea is the world’s second-largest importer of LNG, GIIGNL data show.

Re-exports from Spain may rise to four in May, the most this year, as prices for the fuel stabilize, according to an updated provisional schedule on the website of Enagas SA, the Spanish network operator.