LNG

Intercontinental Exchange, the leading global provider of energy trading platforms for futures and options, plans to launch a Dutch Title Transfer Facility Calendar Spread Option (CSO) contract on December 11 subject to regulatory approval.

Vitol, the world’s largest independent energy and commodities firm, said its traded liquefied natural gas volumes increased slightly to 17.6 million tonnes during 2022 and with 67 percent sold to Europe in the fourth quarter.

Capital Product Partners LP (CPLP), the growing liquefied natural gas and energy shipping assets owner, has taken delivery of the newbuild LNG carrier, “Asterix I” and chartered it to a UK-based company.

CPLP said that the vessel has started seven years of employment with Hartree Partners Power & Gas Company (UK) Limited, who maintain an option to extend by an additional two years.

Hartree Partners is a London-based energy supplier and is also involved in trading and marketing volumes to the National Grid.

The owner of “Astrix 1” is a Greek company listed on the Nasdaq global exchange as well as being a master limited partnership in the Marshall Islands.

The LNG vessels sail under the Capital Gas banner and the experienced CPLP executive leadership comprises Chief Executive Gerasimos (Jerry) Kalogiratos, Chief Financial Officer Nikolaos Kalapotharakos and Chief Commercial Officer Spyridon Leousis.

The “Asterix I” vessel is the seventh latest-generation of LNG carriers for CPLP and has 174,000 cubic metres capacity.

Fleet

CPLP currently owns 22 vessels, including the seven LNG carriers as well as 11 Neo-Panamax container vessels, three Panamax container vessels and one Capesize bulk carrier.

This excludes one 13,312 TEU container vessel that CPLP has agreed to acquire and is expected to be delivered in the second quarter of 2023

CPLP signed an agreement in June 2022 to acquire one 174,000 cubic metres capacity latest-generation X-DF LNG carrier and three 13,312 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) containerships with hybrid scrubber-fitted Tier III and Phase III as well as being dual fuel-ready.

CPLP in its most recent earnings posted on February 3, 2023, reported full year net profits of $21.1 million, an increase of 13 percent on the $18.6M of net earnings from 2021.

The company's annual revenues came to $79.9M versus $63.6M in the previous year.

The increase in revenue was primarily attributable to the contributions of the four LNG carriers acquired during the fourth quarter of 2021 and operating for the full period and an increase in the daily rate earned by the LNG vessels “Aristarchos” and “Asklipios” from September 2022.

Flex LNG, the Norwegian shipping company with a fleet of 13 modern vessels and several chartered to the largest US exporter, reported an 18 percent jump in first-quarter net income even amid spot freight market challenges at the end of the three months as the LNG trade abruptly shifted towards Europe from Asia.

UK major and global LNG sector participant BP reported a loss of $20.4 billion for the first quarter of 2022 as it booked a series of charges and impairments related to its exit from Russian oil and natural gas amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Trafigura Group, the global commodities market participant, said the global LNG market continued to grow rapidly in size and complexity in 2019, driven by abundant new flows from the US and Russia, the development of a more liquid spot market in the Far East and sustained low natural gas prices.

Intercontinental Exchange Inc. a leading operator of global exchanges and clearing houses, and US energy pricing company S&P Global Platts said they were launching an electronic platform known as eWindow for the liquefied natural gas market.

Unlike oil, which has several financial and physical trading platforms and exchanges, LNG markets are still evolving with various companies offering different productions

Platts, a unit of the US credit rating agency S&P Global Inc, already uses the eWindow platform as part of its pricing process.

The platform allows participating companies to key in their bids, offers or transactions directly and which appear on a screen for others to see.

It is aiming to launch the new platform with ICE in a few months.

ICE and Platts said the eWindow platform will be an online data-entry and communications tool that allows market participants in the Platts Markets On Close (MOC) price assessment process to communicate bids, offers and transactions directly to Platts editors and the marketplace simultaneously.

“Its grid-like screen offers an easy, at-a-glance view and allows market participants to instantly respond to the bids and offers submitted,” said a statement.

“The eWindow method is already widely adopted to power the MOC process for key oil benchmarks and now will be accessible for Platts LNG price assessments, such as Platts Japan Korea Marker, the benchmark price for LNG delivered into Northeast Asia,” they added.

ICE already has the broadest range of natural gas benchmarks, hosting UK National Balancing Point, Dutch Title Transfer Facility, Henry Hub and the Japan Korea Marker prices, allowing market participants to hedge their price risk via futures and options for the major gas hubs globally.

ICE-JKM LNG (Platts) futures and options contracts are increasingly being used as the benchmark contract for LNG in Asia and continue to break new trading records as one of the fastest growing natural gas benchmarks and the most liquid Asian natural gas benchmark.

ICE-JKM LNG hit a record 44,394 lots for futures and options combined in June and reached a new open interest record of 52,080 lots, at the end of June.

“As LNG markets continue to liberalize and new types of price agreements emerge between buyers and sellers of LNG, a range of hedging products are critical to allow the market to hedge risk and manage price exposure,” said the companies.

Chuck Vice, deputy chairman of ICE said Platts and ICE have had a long and successful history of working together to bring transparent price discovery to energy markets.

“The launch of eWindow is an important milestone in the ongoing maturity and evolution of LNG markets, moving it to the next level in terms of standardization and transparency,” he said.

“ICE is home to the broadest range of natural gas benchmark futures markets with an established and growing global community of gas traders using futures and options to transact and manage their price risk,” he stated.

Trading does not occur on the eWindow, but the tool's compatibility with ICE technology allows eWindow users to execute trades on the ICE platform without leaving the Platts MOC price assessment process and environment.