--DES Northeast Asia
DES Northeast Asia weakened. Pieces for second-half July delivery, mainly discussed, were at $1.70-1.85, down 70-80cts from mid-May. Spot supply was plentiful. Many cargoes including ones from the Sakhalin project and the PNGLNG project in Papua New Guinea were available. Although some demand was observed not only from some Japanese power companies but also from China, South Korea and Taiwan, supply/demand fundamentals were remarkably loose. Several long-term customers including Japanese power companies exercised downward quantity tolerance (DQT) and deferred the intake of term cargoes, giving rise to more surplus cargoes for prompt timings for producers such as Sakhalin Energy and PNGLNG.

--FOB Atlantic, DES Europe and South America
The DES Europe market had been capped because the Netherlands' TTF and Britain's NBP remained low. Regarding pipeline gas flow to Europe, supply through the Yamal pipeline operated by Gazprom temporarily declined last May. Gazprom reduced supply to Europe, judging that the natural gas markets were low. As a result, the European natural gas markets including Britain's NBP temporarily strengthened. But these natural gas markets quickly weakened since the supply reduction was not caused by facility troubles and gas flow recovered this week. The Yamal pipeline, which originates in Moscow, is supplying Russian gas to Poland and Germany.

--FOB Middle East, DES South Asia and the Middle East
In the Middle East market, supply/demand fundamentals became looser. In addition to Qatargas, Oman LNG had surplus cargoes and supply/demand fundamentals remained slack. Qatargas was concerned about a further drop in spot prices and refrained from lowering its offers to carry out spot sale, requesting its long-term customers to take additional cargoes instead. But not many term customers seemed to be willing to buy additional cargoes. On the contrary, many long-term customers in Japan and Korea were requesting to defer supply as this was a low demand season and the COVID-19 outbreak also dampened demand. As a result, they could not receive long-term cargoes as planned. Under such circumstances, Qatargas was taking more cargoes to terminals where it has usage rights such as the 16.00 mil mt/year South Hook terminal in Britain but even so, it could not find outlets for all its surplus cargoes.