China imported a record amount of LNG in January, breaking the previous record set in December, as cold winter weather set in and natural gas replaced coal and coke in northern cities under a state campaign to reduce air pollution.
The Singapore LNG cargo index for April averaged US$7.884 per million British thermal units compared with US$9.583 in the first half of March as seasonal demand eases off in Northeast Asia.
Chart Industries, the US LNG equipment-maker, was moving in a positive path with rising sales and fourth-quarter profits after restructuring, acquiring three new companies and winning a contract for a proposed new LNG export plant in Louisiana.
Fluor Corp. of the US has started the front-end engineering and design work for a project planned by Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) to deploy a floating storage regasification unit (FSRU) and build associated facilities in the northern Gulf of Thailand.
TechnipFMC, the energy and LNG project engineering company whose main current projects included building the Yamal liquefaction and export plant in Arctic Russia, posted lower annual net profits and revenues and a fourth-quarter loss.
Malaysian state energy company Petronas has signed a supply agreement with Indian businessman Darshan Hiranandani and his H-Energy company whose LNG plans include a floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) project on the East Coast of India.
Indian liquefied natural gas imports soared by almost 47 percent in January as more cargoes were received from West Africa and Australia in addition to regular shipments from one of the nation’s main supplying countries Qatar.
LNG exporter Cheniere Energy, owner and operator of the Sabine Pass plant in Louisiana and developer of the Corpus Christi facility in Texas posted a full-year loss though edged towards a fourth-quarter profit after shipping 200 cargoes in 2017.
CB&I, the US energy and LNG engineering company in the process of merging with McDermott International, posted a fourth-quarter loss and gave an update on the US Gulf Coast liquefaction and export plants it is currently working on, Freeport LNG in Texas and Cameron LNG in Louisiana.
Australian energy company Santos, with stakes in three Asia-Pacific LNG plants that shipped 250 cargoes in 2017, said it had narrowed its annual losses, boosted LNG income and was building its strategic relationship with ENN Group of China to focus on increasing Chinese LNG demand.