--DES Northeast Asia

In the DES Northeast Asia market last week, the front delivery tracked sideways at around $14.90. The market lacked direction because the Netherlands' TTF market moved in range. Many end-users in Northeast Asia were in wait-and-see moods.

On Dec 6 onwards, the lowest temperature in mornings or nights was forecasted to decrease to about 5 degrees Celsius in a wide area throughout Japan including Tokyo as well as Osaka. With the arrival of harsh winter, sources expected that gas demand for heating and water heating would grow in the near future. Nevertheless, few Japanese energy utilities were active in spot procurement at the moment. Some production projects where minor troubles had occurred were turning back normal operations. The No.1 liquefaction train at the 8.90 mil mt/year Ichthys project in Australia was said to return full operations already.

Some sources reckoned that a buy tender closed on Dec 3 by Thailand's PTT Public Co (PTT) in Southeast Asia was not awarded. Through the tender, PTT was seeking a cargo for Feb 24-25 delivery. Sources perceived that PTT might not have issued the tender actually and might have discussed with potential sellers privately from the beginning.

--FOB Middle East, DES South Asia and the Middle East

The Egyptian government has been accelerating the shift of its official vehicles to run on natural gas. Through switching to natural gas vehicles, the government aims to reduce burdens on environments, such as air pollution. "The air pollution is still a serious problem in Egypt" (a Japanese company).

--FOB Atlantic, DES Europe and South America

In the Netherlands' TTF market, the term structure between different contract months has formed a straight-line backwardation until the next winter delivery, different term-structure from usual. In regard to this, James Whistler, Managing Director at Vanir Global Markets explained, "This was due to higher immediate risk, such as lack of Russian supply, this winter versus next winter. The lack of seasonal shape into next winter will change as we get closer to deliver, where you may start to see a contango develop across develop across May 2025-Jan 26"