• South Korea takes first US LNG cargo: cFlow
• Nine more cargoes headed to northeast Asia
• Still only three US LNG cargoes landed in Europe

As many as nine cargoes of US LNG are currently headed for the world's key LNG demand center in northeast Asia, according to cFlow, Platts trade flow software, as higher spot LNG prices in Asia incentivize the journey for vessels carrying US LNG through the Panama Canal.

Since mid-September when Asian LNG spot prices were around $5.50/MMBtu, prices have risen sharply due to trips at liquefaction plants including Gorgon in Australia.

Platts assessed the JKM LNG Asian benchmark price at $9.75/MMBtu on Tuesday, a considerable jump from as low as $4/MMBtu in April 2016.

Before December, only one US LNG cargo had sailed to northeast Asia out of some 33 sailings from Sabine Pass -- the Maran Gas Apollonia delivered what was said by sources to be a "test" cargo to China in August.

But now nine more vessels are on their way to the region -- home to the major demand centers of Japan, South Korea, China and Taiwan.

China took its second US LNG cargo in December, but Beijing is set to receive a number of the vessels currently headed to the region, according to cFlow.

South Korea -- the second biggest LNG buyer globally -- received its first ever cargo of US LNG on December 23 aboard the Maria Energy, which was the 42nd cargo of LNG to load from Sabine Pass.

Japan has yet to receive any US LNG cargoes, but at least one of the vessels en route to the region currently is expected to offload in Japan.

Taiwan has also yet to import US LNG.

PRICE SURGE

For most of 2016 spot LNG prices in Asia were too low to incentivize the journey from the Sabine Pass export facility in the US Gulf of Mexico to northeast Asia, even after the opening of the expanded Panama Canal in July made the route more economic.

Since they started up in February 2016, US LNG cargoes from Sabine Pass have mostly been delivered to South America, the Middle East and South Asia, with the majority of cargoes going to South America.

Just three US LNG cargoes have so far made it to Europe -- one to Portugal, one to Spain and one to Italy.

Another two shipments were delivered to Turkey.

But as more trains at Sabine Pass come online, it is expected that more US LNG will make its way to Europe.

Spain's Gas Natural has a 20-year offtake agreement for LNG from Train 2 of Sabine Pass.

Shell has annual offtake of 3.5 million mt from Sabine Pass Train 1.

--Stuart Elliott, stuart.elliott@spglobal.com

--Edited by Jonathan Dart, jonathan.dart@spglobal.com

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