State-owned QatarEnergy (QE) has extended its rolling force majeure (FM) notice for LNG supply to Italy's Edison and Pakistan's state-run Pakistan LNG (PLL).
Edison's previous FM notice affected cargoes to early November, and the update will affect six additional cargoes, the firm said.
It takes around 30 days for a Qatari cargo to arrive at Italy's 7.5mn t/yr Adriatic import terminal, implying that QE does not expect to resume regular operations until the beginning of November at the earliest.
Pakistan's FM notice was extended to 4-5 November, sources familiar with the matter told Argus, aligning with the three days required for a cargo to move from Qatar to Pakistan. The lack of Qatari supply in October will probably push the country to issue spot tenders again. Qatar made up nearly all of Pakistan's LNG imports last year, although Pakistan was in negotiations to defer its supply prior to the war in the Middle East.
Edison holds 6.4bn m³/d of regasification capacity at Adriatic, tied to its equivalent-sized QE contract, but has been backfilling cargoes from other suppliers, primarily US firms. These cargoes are smaller than most of the cargoes it took from QE, allowing the terminal to offer some smaller profile regasification slots and capacity given up by long-term holders, although the prompt nature of the offerings has meant that some released slots have gone unbooked despite their relative profitability.
Adriatic is fully booked to the end of the fourth quarter, except for one slot over 11-15 October released by a long-term capacity holder, with the auction scheduled for today.
