HIGHLIGHTS
- Europe has become the top destination for America’s LNG exporters.
- 28 LNG ships were near US Gulf Coast ports waiting to be loaded.
FULL ARTICLE
Due to domestic production decrease, the shortage of pipeline supply, combined with the cold weather, European demand for US LNG has increased considerably in the last year, all of which contribute to the lack of natural gas in this area. Sanctions imposed on Russian corporations and institutions as a result of the country’s invasion of Ukraine appear to be generating new demand.
Because of these reasons, Europe has become the top destination for America’s LNG exporters. Similar to natural gas, oil has also received much attention from the European market. Reality has shown that roughly 3/4 of tankers leaving US ports in February were destined to Europe, while the remaining heading to Asia.
On Monday, 28 ships were near US Gulf Coast ports with its full LNG export capacity, according to the analysts. The last two daily tanker peaks occurred on February 10 and November 11, when there were between 27 and 28 tankers waiting to be loaded.
According to some reports, there were 7 LNG vessels within a 32-kilometer radius of Freeport and another six within a comparable radius of Corpus Christi are being “frozen”, too. Especially, among the ships waiting to load, there was the Golar Snow, which arrived a week ago and has been at anchor since.
In another sign of rising demand for U.S. gas, at least 5 ships carrying the super-chilled fuel were lining up to pass through the Suez Canal, a longer route than the Panama Canal, Refinitiv shared.
Facing this dilemma, The Panama Canal Authority last month announced that due to increase in seasonal demand for vessel passage, tankers with no reservations might have to deal with delays at this canal.
Tran Van Hieu
