--DES Northeast Asia

　 In Japan, daytime high temperatures in Tokyo have stayed below 25 degrees, leading to a decline in air-conditioning demand. In response, several power companies appear to be shutting down coal-fired power plants for scheduled maintenance. Meanwhile, Soma Kyodo Thermal Power have successively reduced run rates and suspended operations at the No.1 and No.2 units with a respective capacity of 100MW at its Shinchi coal-fired power station since Sep 26 due to malfunctions in the fuel handling equipment. As a result, market participants anticipate that this may help draw down Japan's LNG inventories, which have remained at high levels . Furthermore, as spot prices have recently remained at high levels, some Japanese public utility energy companies see merits in reselling their term cargoes. However, one major Japanese city gas company currently has no surplus cargoes on hand and intends to balance supply and demand for the time being through time swap deals for winter-delivery cargoes.

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

　 India's state-owned gas company GAIL floated a buy tender closing last Friday. It was seeking one cargo for arrival on Oct 21-31 or Oct 28-31 delivery to the Dahej terminal.

--FOB Atlantic, DES Europe and South America

　 In Brazil, a total of 105,000mt of LNG was unloaded earlier this month. A partial lot in 35,000mt, loaded at the 15.3 mil mt/year Atlantic project in Trinidad and Tobago, arrived at the 2.7 mil mt/year Sepetiba terminal. It appears that half of the cargo was first unloaded in Colombia, with the remainder brought to Brazil. In addition, a cargo in 70,000mt from the 15.3 mil mt/year Freeport project in the US was imported to the 6 mil mt/year Barcarena terminal at the Port of Vila do Conde. However, a Japanese analyst expressed the view that "since Brazil has abundant hydropower and does not rely heavily on natural gas-fired power generation, LNG imports are likely to remain sporadic going forward."