Chinese buyers that received the first U.S. LNG cargo in over a year plan to resell it on another market to profit from higher prices elsewhere and avoid paying a 25% tariff, sources familiar with the plans told Bloomberg on Monday.
The Yangpu port in south China earlier this month received a cargo of U.S. LNG from the Plaquemines LNG export terminal operated by Venture Global in Louisiana’s Plaquemines Parish. This was the first U.S. shipment of gas to China in more than a year. But the gas was offloaded into bonded storage, without being actually imported into China, because the buyer would have paid a 25% tariff on the cargo.
The cargo was bought with the intention to resell for higher prices at a non-Chinese market, according to Bloomberg’s sources.
An empty tanker has recently docked at Yangpu, likely to load the gas for re-export, vessel-tracking data monitored by Bloomberg showed.
The move suggests that China is not so starved of LNG as to be willing to pay the 25% tariff to resume importing U.S. liquefied natural gas.
Despite the Middle East war that has been choking Qatari and UAE exports for five months now, China’s LNG imports have rebounded in recent weeks amid higher seasonal demand.
China raised its liquefied natural gas imports for a second month in a row in June as the world’s top LNG buyer prepares for peak summer power demand.
Chinese imports of LNG jumped by 8.3% from a year earlier to 5.68 million tons in June, according to official customs data released last week. This was the second consecutive month in which China’s LNG imports increased from the year-ago period, following three months of falling LNG cargo arrivals in February, March, and April.
Chinese imports started recovering in May, rebounding from an eight-year low, as buyers started to purchase more cargoes in the middle of April, and have been keeping a high rate of imports since then.
China’s giant state LNG importers are also reportedly in talks to secure long-term LNG supplies from exporters that don’t need the Strait of Hormuz, as the world’s biggest LNG buyer seeks to reduce its exposure to gas deliveries from the Persian Gulf, sources familiar with the plans told Bloomberg earlier this month.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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