LNG prices are set to remain at elevated levels over the next few months amid the massive supply disruption from the Middle East, Chevron Australia says.
“I have a hard time seeing the prices come down” in the next six months or so, Balaji Krishnamurthy, Managing Director of Chevron Australia, told Bloomberg TV in an interview on Monday.
Australia’s LNG is trading at a premium in Asia now, considering the geographic proximity with the key demand center, the executive told Bloomberg on the sidelines of the Gastech conference in Bangkok, Thailand.
Chevron operates two massive LNG projects in Australia: Gorgon, which its 15.6 million tons in capacity is the larger one—and the largest in Australia as a whole. The other, Wheatstone, can produce 8.9 million tons of liquefied natural gas annually. The two together account for about 5% of global LNG supply.
The spot Asian LNG price for October delivery into northeast Asia jumped at the end of last week to the highest level since 2022, amid the re-escalation in the Middle East that further delayed any recovery of LNG flows out of the Strait of Hormuz. Some LNG shipments are estimated to have moved out of the chokepoint in recent weeks, as carriers loaded from Qatar and the United Arab Emirates in the Persian Gulf have transferred their cargoes onto other vessels outside the Strait of Hormuz.
Still, the trickle of supply is not enough to meet demand ahead of the winter heating season in Asia and Europe, which have been locked in a competition to procure alternative LNG supply since the start of the Iran war at the end of February.
The lack of meaningful recovery of Middle Eastern LNG flows and the intensified race Asia-Europe for winter gas supply has pushed the average price for October delivery into northeast Asia to $26.00 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) on Friday, up from $25.70 per MMBtu assessed at the end of the previous week. Friday’s price was the highest spot LNG price in Asia since December 2022.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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