LNG

Liquefied natural gas prices dropped for Europe and Asia in the past week after a brief rebound with the margin of decline greater for the benchmark Dutch Title Transfer Facility as European Union gas storage withdrawal levels slowed while Asian buyers were attracted by lower prices.

Feb 9 (LNGJ) – The LNG carrier, “Rioja Knutsen”, with 176,300 cubic metres of capacity, will deliver the European Union’s next cargo with the vessel scheduled to berth later on February 9 at the Dutch Gate import terminal in Rotterdam, according to shipping data. The cargo was lifted on January 27 from the Corpus Christi export plant in Texas.

   That’s as the European Union Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators, which will issue daily EU LNG price assessments from the end of March, published its latest February LNG cargo test assessment. The EU agency put the delivered-ex-ship (DES) spot cargo price for Northwest Europe at €53.85 per megawatt hour (MWh), the equivalent to about $16.930 per million British thermal units.

European natural gas and LNG prices dropped by another 9.5 percent on the week as gas storage levels were high in Europe and energy demand in North Asia was seen gaining to underpin the Japan-Korea Marker price for spot cargoes.