U.S. weekly LNG exports slip
Liquefied natural gas exports from the United States slipped over the week ending April 8.
The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) noted in its weekly report that a total of twelve LNG cargoes departed the export facilities.We watch U.S. exports because they act as a relief valve for U.S. production. It's either ship it or store it and the latter can push Henry Hub prices around.
The twelve vessels had a combined LNG-carrying capacity of 42 Bcf.
Out of the twelve cargoes, Cheniere’s Sabine Pass in Louisiana exported five cargoes. Cheniere dispatched an additional two cargoes from its Corpus Christi plant in Texas....MORE
And also April 10:Novatek’s Q1 gas production up, LNG sales down
Russia’s largest independent natural gas producer Novatek boosted its production in the first quarter of this year while the company’s sales decreased.
Novatek said Thursday that natural gas production rose by 2.2 percent year on year to 19.1 billion cubic metres.Meaning they probably got better prices than they otherwise would have.
The Russian company’s production of oil and gas condensate increased in the January – March period by 2 per cent to 3.05 million tonnes.
Preliminary natural gas sales volumes, including liquefied natural gas volumes, totaled 20.69 billion cubic meters, logging a decline of 6.8 per cent year-on-year.
Novatek sold 2.45 billion cubic meters of LNG volumes on international markets.
Novatek said the decline was due to the “decrease of Yamal LNG shareholders’ share, including Novatek’s share, of LNG sales on the spot market, and a corresponding increase of Yamal LNG direct sales under long-term contracts”....MORE
Watching the big producers back-and-forth into the spot or contract market can give clues on their thinking re: prices. Late last July we had a post "Norway Looks For Bigger Role In European Gas Markets" which had a short little sentence:
According to Lars Christian Bacher, Equinor’s Executive Vice President and chief financial officer, “the shift that we’re doing is that we want to expose more to the spot market...."which sort of jumps off the page.
Our outro comment:
Exposure to spot rather than contracting longer term eh?In the bad old days it wouldn't have mattered to the U.S. market in the least, and even now, with all the LNG moving around it's still not a globally efficient market but if you look at the chart for U.S. futures, late July last year turned out to be a decent lime to go long:
It might be a coincidence and correlation definitely ≠ causation but the big producers have to be right more often than they're wrong or they don't remain big producers.
