China’s liquefied natural gas imports are on track to slump by 18% in August from a year earlier, bucking a three-month-long trend of growing purchases this summer, as high LNG prices put off some price-sensitive industrial consumers, vessel-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg showed on Monday.
The average price of spot LNG for delivery into Asia nearly doubled this month from a year earlier, as the global gas markets continue to tighten amid intense Asia-Europe competition for supply that’s not trapped behind the Strait of Hormuz.
Asian LNG prices averaged $21 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) in August 2026, compared to just $12 per MMBtu for the same month last year.
Spot LNG prices in Asia last week hit a five-month high of $23.388 per MMBtu. The spot LNG price has been hovering at four-year high levels, as supply has tightened with the absence of Qatari term deliveries since the Iran war began. In addition, utilities in Asia have been outbidding Europe for LNG supply this summer amid a shrinking pool of Middle East cargoes, which other producers cannot fully offset with increased deliveries.
Reports from Friday that Qatar’s state-owned QatarEnergy has extended through October-early November its force majeure on LNG deliveries to customers further raised concerns about global LNG supply just ahead of the winter.
China had increased its LNG imports for a second month in a row in June. 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.
But the high prices are now leading to some demand destruction. After three months of higher LNG imports compared to a year earlier, China is not set to see its imports of the fuel down by 18% to about 5.2 million tons in August, per Kpler’s estimates cited by Bloomberg.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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