Coal news and updates

Japan's cold spell has stoked LPG demand in city gas supply for heating, boosting imports until February, though this might not last until March, trade sources said.

 

The increase in city gas demand requires incremental supply of LPG -- which has a higher calorific value, or energy content -- and is used to add calories into regasified gas from LNG for city gas use, a Japanese city gas source said.

He added that Japan's city gas sector was also seeing incremental LPG demand for heating due to the severe winter.

 

"Japanese LPG demand is not too bad," a Japanese trader said, while an Asian trade source said Japanese importers "bought quite a lot for February delivery, probably five full cargoes," or around 220,000 mt.

 

The Japanese trader said this was a bigger monthly volume than usual, "but not too much, I feel."

 

Trade sources said they doubted Japanese importers would buy a similar volume for March delivery.

 

This comes as Japanese utilities have overcome the worst of gas shortages that pushed Asian LNG spot prices to all-time highs of $32.50/MMBtu recently.

 

LNG stocks held by Japanese power utilities have also begun to recover after plunging to a multi-month low of 1.16 million mt on Jan. 11,

 

as the country is past its peak power demand for winter, a survey released Jan. 19 by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry showed.

 

 

Source : https://www.spglobal.com