Last week, both Atlantic and Pacific rates continued to slide.
“Spark30s Atlantic rates fell by $1,250 to $59,250 per day, marking the fourth consecutive weekly decrease and the first time that Spark30S rates have fallen below $60,000 in 3 months,” Qasim Afghan, Spark’s commercial analyst told LNG Prime on Friday.
He said Spark25S Pacific rates also declined for the fourth consecutive week, falling by $3,500 to $74,000 per day.
“Freight rates in both basins are currently over $100,000 lower than this time last year,” Afghan said.
European prices drop
In Europe, the SparkNWE DES LNG front dropped this week.
“The SparkNWE DES LNG front month price for October delivery is assessed at $11.607/MMBtu, falling $1.146/MMBtu since the first assessment less than a week ago,” Afghan said.
“The discount to the TTF stayed steady this week at $0.145/MMBtu,” Afghan said.
Data by Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE) shows that volumes in gas storages in the EU continued to rise and were 92.65 percent full on September 4.
Gas storages were 91.98 percent full on August 28, and 93.21 percent full on September 4, 2023.
JKM
In Asia, JKM, the price for LNG cargoes delivered to Northeast Asia, for October settled at $13.815/MMBtu on Thursday.
Last week, JKM for October settled at 14.090/MMBtu on August 23.
Front month JKM then fell to 13.825/MMBtu on Tuesday and 13.785/MMBtu on Wednesday.
Egypt LNG tender
Egypt’s Egyptian General Petroleum Corp., the parent company of EGAS, has reportedly launched a tender for 20 LNG cargoes for delivery during October-December.
Several reports said that 17 of these LNG cargoes are for delivery to the Ain Sokhna terminal and three to Jordan’s Aqaba import facility.
Prior to this, Egypt also awarded a tender for 20 LNG cargoes for the summer period and issued other tenders as well, according to reports.
In July this year, Hoegh LNG’s 170,000-cbm FSRU Hoegh Galleon received its first cargo of LNG in Egypt’s Ain Sokhna as part of a charter deal with EGAS.
In May, Norwegian FSRU player Hoegh LNG confirmed it has signed a deal with Australian Industrial Energy (AIE) and Egypt’s EGAS to deploy the 2019-built FSRU Hoegh Galleon to Egypt.
The agreement with EGAS is for an interim period of June 2024 to February 2026 and will help Egypt to address potential gas shortages and fuel power plants.
