Asian spot LNG prices rise to 3-month high

LONDON, June 18 (Reuters): Asian spot liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices reversed their multi-week downward trend and rose to a three-month high last week, tracking European gas gains and as high temperatures in north-east Asia increased cooling demand.
The average LNG price for August delivery into north-east Asia LNG-AS jumped by 50 per cent from the previous week to $13.50 per million British thermal units (mmBtu), its highest level since mid-March, industry sources estimated.
"Volatility set in mid-week with news of (Norwegian) outages which caused a rally in European prices and naturally Asian prices followed suit," said Toby Copson, global head of trading at Trident LNG.
"While spot offers might reflect that, demand still isn't there and we will see other players turn away until congruence on demand," he added.
Ryhana Rasidi, LNG analyst at data analytics firm Kpler, said that despite the increase, Asian prices are at a discount to European gas prices, which has seen prompt loading cargoes from the United States point back towards Europe.
In Europe, gas prices at the Dutch TTF hub turned bullish this week, after hitting a two-year low at the start of June, on reiterated plans to close production at the Dutch Groningen gas field in October, and ongoing maintenance at the Norwegian Troll and Oseberg gas fields.
S&P assessed its daily north-west Europe LNG Marker (NWM) price benchmark for cargoes delivered in July on an ex-ship (DES) basis at $12.755/mmBtu on June 15, a $0.343/mmBtu discount to the July gas price at the Dutch gas TTF hub, according to Allen Reed, managing editor of Atlantic LNG.