Sabine Pass LNG Plant Suffers Outage
Production at Cheniere Energy's Sabine Pass liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plant in Louisiana is running well below capacity, resulting in disruption to cargo loadings, trade sources said. Feed gas supply into the liquefaction plant plunged sharply during the weekend, data on the Thomson Reuters Eikon terminal showed. Flows fell to 630 million cubic feet/day on Jan. 19 from 3.2 billion cubic feet/day on Jan. 15. Freezing weather may have disrupted water supply to Sabine Pass, market sources said.
China to top Japan as World's Biggest LNG Importer
Pollution fight drives surge in pipeline, LNG imports but Japan remains world's biggest importer of LNG. Beijing's crackdown on pollution has put China on track to overtake Japan this year as the world's biggest importer of natural gas, used to replace dirtier coal. China - already the biggest importer of oil and coal - is the world's third biggest user of natural gas behind the United States and Russia, but has to import around 40 percent of its total needs as domestic production can't keep up with demand. Data compiled from the Thomson Reuters Eikon terminal indicates China's 2017 imports of pipeline gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG) will top 67 million tonnes, up by more than a quarter from a year earlier. LNG imports alone surged more than 50 percent.
Asia Tankers-VLCC Rates to Slide on Lower Cargo Volumes
34 VLCC MidEast cargoes fixed for early Jan -Reuters terminal; only nine fixed so far for mid-Jan. Freight rates for very large crude carriers (VLCCs), which hit a new nine-month high this week, are on course to soften amid a weaker cargo market as owners wait for more charters to be released from the Middle East and labour unrest affects loading programmes from West Africa. "I think a lot of owners have started to give up now. It's way too quiet - a lot of owners expected this week to be really busy but it has been dead quiet," a European supertanker broker said on Friday. "Owners are sitting on tonnage but there is no cargo," the broker added. Around 34 cargoes have been fixed for loading in the Middle East in the first 10 days in January, according to data on the Reuters Eikon terminal.
Asia Tankers-VLCCs Rates Ease as Tanker Jams Fade
Port congestion eases at Basra and Chinese ports; tanker demand set to expand on lower oil prices. Freight rates for very large crude carriers (VLCCs), hurt by slower-than-usual release of cargo, could slip further next week as more tonnage becomes available with the easing of recent tanker traffic jams in China, ship brokers said on Friday. Charter rates from the Middle East to Japan slipped to a six-month low on Thursday, falling by 12 Worldscale points or almost $14,000 since April 21. There are talks of a VLCC from Basra to Asia being fixed for a rate of W45, a Singapore-based supertanker broker said. This could not be confirmed, but if true, the rate would be the lowest since Sept. 2, according to data on the Thomson Reuters Eikon terminal.
China Teapot Refiners Create Qingdao Tanker Jam
Tankers at Qingdao port face up to 30-day wait. At least 15 large tankers wait to offload -shiptracking data. A surge in oil buying by China's newest crude importers has created delays of up to a month for vessels to offload cargoes at Qingdao port, imposing costly fees and complicating efforts to sell to the world's hottest new buyers. China's independent refiners, freed of government constraints after securing permission to import just last year, have gorged on plentiful low-cost crude in 2016. This has created delays for tankers that have quadrupled to between 20 to 30 days at Qingdao port in Shandong province, the key import hub for the plants, known as teapots, according to port agents and ship-tracking data.
