The Platts JKM for spot LNG deliveries in Northeast Asia in December ended the trading week at $7.175/MMBtu Friday, up by 10 cents/MMBtu on the week, driven by limited availability and strong buy competition.
Most offers to North Asia were held above $7.40/MMBtu as increases in the European gas hub prices made the European markets more attractive to sellers.
Bids from traders and end-users, however, remained capped at $7/MMBtu - $7.1/MMBtu, as growing supply from newly started projects and mild winter temperature forecasts in the region were seen as indicators that the market may have peaked.
A seller in the Asia-Pacific region said: "We are not getting calls from traders or end buyers, so I do not think prices are going to keep going up." A recent sell tender by US-headquartered ExxonMobil, offering a single cargo for loading from Australia's Gorgon LNG on November 5, was heard awarded at $7.20-7.30/MMBtu, on a DES basis, for delivery to South Korea.
Several traders, portfolio players and China's state-owned buyer PetroChina were heard to have participated in the tender, but the winner could not be confirmed.
In South Asia, offers into a buy tender issued by Indian utility GAIL, seeking a total of three cargoes for late December and January delivery, were heard above $7.40/MMBtu.
The tender was expected to be awarded Friday, but sources said GAIL was likely to engage in bilateral negotiations with tender participants before buying the volumes.
Another tender due to be awarded Friday was from Taiwan's CPC, seeking up to two deliveries over late November and December, but no award had been heard made as yet.
The market remained largely focused on December deliveries, with little visibility into January, but most participants estimated January trades to be done at a slight premium from December.
New January availability, however, could emerge in the Pacific, with Russia's Sakhalin expected to offer additional volumes for loading in the first quarter of the new year, according to utilities in Japan.
In the derivatives markets, end-October data from ICE showed a total of 1,455 lots of the JKM swaps contract changed hands and were cleared through ICE in October, or the equivalent of four standard-size LNG cargoes, the largest quantity of JKM swaps cleared in a given month to date.
