LNG

Japanese liquefied natural gas imports increased for a fourth straight month while prices jumped almost 90 percent year-on-year, though imports of thermal coal surpassed LNG, surging 34.5 percent last month to meet higher power demands.

The August 2021 LNG shipments amounted to 6.29MT, or around 90 cargoes, which was 7.8 percent higher than the 5.8MT received in August 2020, according to the preliminary trade figures from Japan's Ministry of Finance.

The July deliveries had amounted to 6.18MT, up 2.5 percent from the 6.03MT received in July 2020.

Japan’s shipments in August cost 363.01 billion yen ($3.31Bln), a rise of 89.3 percent on the 191.76Bln ($1.75Bln) spent in August 2020, though for fewer cargoes.

LNG competes mainly with thermal coal for power generation in Japan and the shipments of coal increased by 34.5 percent year-on-year in August to 10.6MT.

Japan’s thermal coal imports in July 2021 were also high at 9.81MT, up 10.90 percent on the same month in 2020.

Nuclear power generation in Japan is still much reduced with only five plants with nine reactors from a total of 16 plants with 50-plus reactors having gained the agreement of local authorities to resume operations.

Just nine of these reactors are currently on line at six plants.

LNG cargo deliveries to Japan during August 2021 from nations such as Malaysia and Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Brunei rose by 18.5 percent to 1.46MT compared with August 2020.

Middle East shipments from countries like Qatar and Oman were 25.2 percent up year-on-year at 1.25MT.

However, shipments from Russia last month fell 75.7 percent to 144,000 tonnes because of maintenance work at the Sakhalin Island plant in the Russian Far East.

US cargo deliveries to Japan almost doubled year-on-year to 541,000 tonnes, though were less than the previous month's total of 611,000 tonnes.

The balance of imports in August 2021 came from Australia, African nations and the spot market.

That segment of the imports was higher than the previous month at 2.89MT versus last month’s 2.48MT and the deliveries were also above the 2.74MT received in August 2020.

Annual LNG deliveries to the Japanese import network of 37 facilities came to 74.46MT in 2020, down 3.7 percent compared with the 77.32MT received in 2019.

Imports by the world’s largest buyer of LNG have continued to drop in recent years and in 2021 the Japanese total will be overtaken by China.

Japan's 2019 import total of 77.32MT was 6.7 percent lower than the 82.85MT logged in 2018.