January 2007 data seemed to suggest that liquefaction plants
are performing better this year than last, although it is too
early to draw conclusions, said LNG consultant
Andy Flower.
January's global LNG trade totaled 15.2 million mt, Flower
said. If such a rate persists, this year's trade total would be
more than 180 million mt. But since liquefaction plants
typically perform better in the winter, an extrapolation on
January data might be overly optimistic, Flower cautioned.
About 13 million mt/yr of new production is scheduled to come
online this year from projects in Qatar, Equatorial Guinea and
Nigeria, according to Platts data. This would not include the
proposed Snohvit LNG project scheduled to come online in
December.
The largest of these would be Qatar's RasGas train 5, which
is scheduled to start operating March 20 with capacity of 4.7
million mt/yr. Equatorial Guinea's 3.4-million-mt/yr train is
scheduled to start producing in the second quarter. Nigeria
LNG's sixth train, with capacity of 5 million mt/yr, is
scheduled to start operating in the fourth quarter.
The industry will continue to closely watch the amount of LNG
imported by the US this year, especially since many consuming
nations face robust demand growth and fear US competition would
deprive them of supplies in a tight market. But many industry
observers believe the US will continue to primarily buy cargoes
when prices and demand are low in the rest of the world. With
relatively little global competition in January, the US imported
53.44 Bcf (about 1.1 million mt), up 35% from the 39.47 Bcf it
imported the previous January, according to the US Department of
Energy.
Created: March 29, 2007
