Atlantic-basin LNG supply continued to flow largely to Europe last month, as Asia's largest gas consumers remained uninterested in spot US cargoes.
European terminals imported just under 7.6mn t of LNG in August, equal to 9.7bn m³ of pipeline gas, according to ship-tracking data from analytics service Kpler. This was up from 6.4mn t — or 8.28bn m³ of pipeline gas equivalent — in August last year, though receipts had been higher in July.
European LNG sendout stepped up to 3.2 TWh/d in August from 2.4 TWh/d a year earlier, but was below 3.8 TWh/d in July.
Asia imported more LNG than a year earlier, driven largely by stronger South Korean demand, but higher supply availability kept Asian firms from seeking US fob cargoes to meet demand, leaving more of this supply available to Europe. The ramp-up of production at the US 27.2mn t/yr Plaquemines facility in the Atlantic and the start of operations at the 14mn t/yr LNG Canada facility in the Pacific has boosted global liquefaction capacity in recent months.
As a result, Europe imported more from the US, while Asia relied more on terminals east of the Suez canal to meet supply.
The Netherlands was Europe's largest importer in August, at 1.4mn t, followed by France with 1.2mn t and Spain with 1.1mn t.
Downtime at the 7.5mn t/yr Adriatic LNG terminal in the whole of August led to a large fall in Italian LNG imports, which were strong earlier this summer. Italy's LNG deliveries decreased to 892,000t in August from 1.3mn t in July and an all-time high of 1.5mn t in June.
German imports remained brisk at 770,000t, only slightly lower than in June-July and more than double the 350,000t delivered in August last year. Shipments to Poland were also quick at 558,000t. Some of the supply regasified at German and Polish terminals was re-exported to markets in central and eastern Europe that stopped receiving Russian gas at the beginning of this year, when Ukrainian transit ended.
As temperatures in the northern hemisphere fall from their summer high point but remain high enough to prevent substantial heating, global LNG demand will likely be driven by ongoing storage injections needs in Europe. Asian demand continues to be subdued, with the largest gas consumers in the region favouring coal ahead of gas for power generation while price-sensitive buyers remain out of the market.
In addition, more regional supply could become available for Asian buyers if China starts replacing LNG imports from the Pacific with deliveries from Russia's 19.8mn t/yr Arctic LNG 2 (ALNG2) export terminal. China's 6mn t/yr Beihai terminal on 28 August became the first non-Russian terminal to import an LNG cargo from ALNG2 since US sanctions took effect in November 2023, and several other vessels loaded with LNG from ALNG2 are in transit.
The only disruption that could cut into Europe's September imports comes from Nigeria's 22mn t/yr Bonny terminal, where loadings fell to a 12-year low last week. It is unclear why loadings have slowed. In the past, pipeline vandalism has been responsible for weaker feedgas availability. Bonny exported about 570,000t of LNG/month to Europe in January-August, about 45pc of Nigeria's total supply.
