--DES Northeast Asia

In the DES Northeast Asia market last week, front month delivery prices moved around $12.05-12.35, up from a week earlier. Prices rose on an outage at the 15.00 mil mt/year US Freeport project as well as spot demand from China. However, selling pressure was persistent in the market, such as a sell tender issued by Kansai Electric Power Co (KEPCO).

A Chinese independent energy company purchased August delivery at $11.50-12.00. A Chinese state-owned company reportedly bought three cargoes in total at $11.60-11.90. Nevertheless, there were skeptical views as well whether gas demand would continue to grow or not in China since domestic economy was still lackluster.

KEPCO conducted a DES sell tender that closed on Jul 17 for two cargoes for Sep 5-7 and Sep 27-28 delivery. Russian Novatek sold two cargoes for early August delivery via a tender closed on Jul 17. It was not clear who won the Novatek's tender.

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

State-run QatarEnergy closed its FOB sell tender on Jul 17 for a cargo to be loaded on Aug 13 from the 77.00 mil mt/year Ras Laffan project in Qatar. The company was active in spot sales recently, including selling another cargo for early August loading via its previous tender closed on Aug 8. Some viewed that QatarEnergy would continue to issue sell tenders regularly in the future as well.

--FOB Atlantic, DES Europe and South America

At the 15.00 mil mt/year US Freeport project, feedgas inflow has recovered to 20% normal. The project, which has been under outage due to the hurricane "Beryl" that hit the U.S, would resume partial operation soon.