LNG

Asian liquefied natural gas prices and European cargo values increased for a third week as the Northern Hemisphere winter gas season is set to close with high storage yet to be tested for a second year by adverse weather while crude oil hit a four-month high on negative supply forecasts.

European natural gas and North Asian spot cargo prices declined again towards levels last seen three years ago as supplies and storage levels were ample despite colder weather with high flows of LNG cargoes towards Europe along with steady flows of winter pipeline gas from Norway.

The benchmark European Union natural gas futures price remained more than $9 per million British thermal units above Asian spot LNG cargo values, even as prices dropped, while cargo liftings declined amid various outages and ship charter rates jumped.

Japanese energy group JERA Co Inc., one of the world's biggest importers of liquefied natural gas, is expected to expand its Asian business into China as well as other nations in the region.

Intercontinental Exchange, the leading operator of global energy derivative exchanges and clearing houses, said the launch of the world’s newest oil futures contract for liquefied natural exporter Abu Dhabi is on track for a March 29 debut.

Intercontinental Exchange, the leading operator of global energy derivative exchanges and clearing houses, is planning to launch its oil future contract for liquefied natural exporter Abu Dhabi on March 29, backed by leading LNG sector players.

The exchange said that that trading on the ICE Murban Crude Oil Futures (IFAN) is going ahead subject to the completion of regulatory approvals

The IFAN futures debut in the markets had been delayed in 2020 by the market oil market slump and the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We are making good progress on securing the regulatory approvals necessary for launch. We have received approval from the Bank of England for ICE Clear Europe to clear contracts traded on IFAD and IFAD is now a Recognized Market Operator by the Monetary Authority of Singapore,” explained Jamal Oulhadj, President of ICE Futures in Abu Dhabi.

“We believe that the combination of our partners, ICE’s extensive global energy network and customer base, and the capital efficiencies created by clearing Murban alongside Brent, West Texas Intermediate, and Dubai, mean that Murban futures should have a deep base of support as the market uses the futures to buy, sell and hedge Murban crude,” added Oulhadj.

The Murban Crude Oil Future is a physically delivered contract, basis free-onboard (FOB) cargo at the Fujairah loading terminal in the UAE.

The contract will provide users with an effective hedging instrument for Arab Gulf crude oil and other grades of trading into the Asia-Pacific region.

Abu Dhabi also produces LNG as well as oil for the United Arab Emirates and is aiming to increase its natural gas resources by investing more in exploration and production in the next few years.

It currently produces around 5.8 million tonnes per annum of LNG at the Das Island liquefaction plant off Abu Dhabi.

In addition to the approvals from the Bank of England and Monetary Authority of Singapore, ICE Futures Abu Dhabi said it had completed the relevant regulatory processes or analysis required to permit direct access to IFAD from a range of jurisdictions including Abu Dhabi Global Market, the United States, Switzerland, the Netherlands, France, Norway, Australia, Japan and South Korea.

Contracts traded at IFAD will be cleared at ICE Clear Europe, a leading energy clearing house, and will clear alongside ICE’s global energy futures platform covering oil, natural gas and the environmental complex, allowing customers to benefit from associated margin offsets.

Inpex Corp., the Japanese oil and gas company with stakes in major LNG export plants and projects such as Ichthys and Prelude FLNG in Australia and Abadi LNG in Indonesia, is one of the companies that IFAD venture.

The other energy companies joining the launch of IFAD include Royal Dutch Shell, BP of the UK, PetroChina, Total, PTT of Thailand, Japan’s JXTG Nippon Oil & Energy and the international commodities traders Vitol.

The LNG and energy trading subsidiaries of Eni of Italy, China National Petroleum Corp., Socar of Azerbaijan and global commodities firm Trafigura are among the leading participants in the largest ever tender for 240 cargoes issued by Pakistan and for delivery to a Singapore-owned import facility near Karachi.

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.