China's LNG prices are expected to show an uptrend in July, due to a decline in both domestic production and import volumes, learned from OilChem.
Source: OilChem
According to OilChem's survey on 254 Chinese LNG plants, the actual LNG production stood at 708.87 million cubic meters by the week ended July 5, down 4.45% from the previous week, which was attributed to the maintenance season in July, as well as the profit losses.
2024 China LNG Plants' Maintenance Schedule
Province |
Enterprise |
Overhauled Date |
Expected Operation Time |
Overhauled Capacity (cubic meters/day) |
Shanxi |
Pingyao Coal Chemical |
Jul 4 |
H1 Aug |
600,000 |
Shanxi |
Tianhao Clean Energy |
Jun 29 |
N.A |
500,000 |
Inner Mongolia |
Wushenqi Jingpeng Natural Gas |
Jul 1 |
Jul 13 |
300,000 |
Inner Mongolia |
Zhengtai Yida New Energy |
Jun 30 |
N.A |
2,000,000 |
Inner Mongolia |
Huineng Zhenghe New Energy Phase 1 |
Jul 2 |
Jul 22 |
1,200,000 |
Inner Mongolia |
Bayannur Xinxing New Energy |
Jul 3 |
Jul 13 |
1,000,000 |
Shaanxi |
Rui'er Natural Gas |
Jul 1 |
N.A |
3,000,000 |
Xinjiang |
Guanghui Energy (Naomaohu) |
Jun 30 |
N.A |
2,000,000 |
Hubei |
Kunlun Energy Hubei Huanggang LNG |
Jun 30 |
Aug 30 |
5,000,000 |
Sichuan |
Dazhou Huixin Energy |
Jul 1 |
Jul 15 |
600,000 |
Source: OilChem
The higher international spot LNG prices curbed Chinese importers' buying interest. The average prices of Northeast Asia spot prices stood at $12.6/mmbtu in June, up 11.50% from $11.30/mmbtu in May. In this case, Chinese upstream enterprises were more willing to resell the cargoes for arbitrage, causing a decline in LNG imports.
Source: OilChem
However, the higher LNG prices enlarged its spread with the PNG prices, and downstream users were more inclined to purchase PNG due to its attractive prices than LNG. At present, the PNG prices were Yuan 3,920/t of LNG equivalent, significantly lower than the LNG delivery prices of Yuan 4,600/t, which drove down domestic LNG demand by 4.81% from last week to 766,500 tonnes.
Source: OilChem
Currently, China's LNG prices stood at Yuan 4,703/t, up 1.73% month-on-month. With higher imported costs and reducing LNG supplies, OilChem expects that the LNG prices will continue to rise in the future, after all the decrease in supply surpassed the weakness in demand.
Written by Sunny Fang, fss@oilchem.net
Edited by Aggie Hu, huchenying@mysteel.com