--DES Northeast Asia

The first-half December delivery temporarily climbed to a level just above $19.00 last week. As intensifying tension in the Middle East was concerned and LNG demand from China was expected to grow, more traders and portfolio players were active in spot trading. On Oct 18, British Shell bought a cargo for Dec 10-12 delivery at a premium level to the December contract of the Netherlands' TTF natural gas market from JERA and a cargo for Dec 25-27 delivery at $19.25 from European Trafigura. Moreover, Glencore also procured a cargo for Dec 6-8 delivery at a premium of 15cts to the December contract of DES Northeast Asia spot quotations from European Vitol. Some sources felt that these prices were higher than the current spot market since supply/demand was not tight at the moment. The Chinese government, however, was said to give state-run oil companies the instruction that they should build up inventories toward winter and anticipations that LNG demand from China would grow going forward. Under this situation, a Japanese company said, "More players like Shell and Glencore might move on spot purchase, and this boosts the DES Northeast Asia market." In addition, with blowing up a hospital at the Gaza Strip in Palestine, concerns about tension in the Middle East were spreading, which was also cited as a bullish factor. On talks for long-term cargoes, JERA GM, a trading subsidiary of JERA inked a long-term contract with ADNOC Gas in the United Arab Emirates on a DES basis on Wednesday. ADNOC Gas would supply six cargoes annually from 2024 for two years, which was equivalent to about 400,000mt/year. In the meantime, Malaysian state-run Petronas appeared to have submitted an offer based on JCC (Japan Crude Cocktails) into a buy tender closed on Sep 26 by Hokkaido Gas Corp for long-term cargoes. Moreover, other sellers seemed to place an offer based on Brent crude prices. Some sellers were seen to have offered the slope to JCC or Brent in the high 13%'s to 14%. "Hokkaido Gas wanted to secure more cargoes for winter delivery, which demand concentrated in. As a result, the offer became higher" (a Japanese company). Through the tender, the company was looking for three to four cargoes per year starting 2027 for 5 years at least.

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

Bangladesh appeared to not to move to buy cargoes given prices were expensive, while it had demands. State-owned Rupantarita Prakritik Gas Co (RPGCL) floated a buy tender for a cargo for the arrival of Nov 12-13 again. The tender was to be closed on Oct 22 with validity until Oct 19. This was the second time for the state-run company to issue the tender for Nov 12-13 delivery. In the first tender, RPGCL appeared to cancel buying a cargo since the offer prices submitted were too high. In the Middle East, state-run Qatar Energy inked a contract on a DES basis with British Shell. The contract was for 27 years, starting 2026.

--FOB Atlantic, DES Europe and South America

In Finland, the first LNG ship was delivered on Oct 17 after the gas leakage accident on the Baltic connector pipeline which connects between the country and Estonia on Oct 8. In South America, A spot transaction was heard for Colombia delivery. Colombia's state-owned Calamari LNG purchased a total of five partial cargoes for Nov and Dec delivery to the 3.70 mil mt/year Cartagena terminal through a buy tender that closed on Oct 17.