Coal news and updates

China's LNG imports from Russia hit 22-month high in August: sources

China's LNG imports from Russia reached a 22-month high of about 611,000 mt in August, shipping data from S&P Global Commodity Insights showed, due to China's continued reliance on Russian cargoes despite Western sanctions following Ukraine's invasion.

China imported six LNG cargoes of about 71,000 mt each from Russia's Yamal LNG terminal and three cargoes of about 62,000 mt each from the Sakhalin LNG terminal, according to the shipping data.

The Yamal cargoes are estimated to be mostly term contract volumes with about 15.7 million mt/year contracted out of the 16.5 million mt/year volume, while the Sakhalin cargoes were bought in the spot market via tenders, market sources said, adding that the latter were likely purchased at a high discount to spot LNG prices.

"Chinese NOCs [national oil companies] have term contracts with Yamal LNG ... some of them were said swapping cargoes in the market -- sell some non-Russia cargoes to Europe while buy back some lower-priced cargoes in the spot market," a trade source in Guangdong said.

The Sakhalin LNG cargoes were shipped to state-owned Sinopec's Tianjin LNG terminal in North China Aug. 18, PetroChina's Rudong LNG terminal in eastern Jiangsu province Aug. 21, and state-owned CNOOC's Ningbo LNG terminal in eastern Zhejiang province Aug. 27, the shipping data showed.

"We bought some spot cargoes to replenish our inventories in preparation for the winter supply," a source with one of the national oil companies said.

Chinese LNG importers have mostly cut back on their LNG purchases in the spot market in 2022 as prices became too expensive for many downstream buyers to afford and domestic demand was well supplied by cheaper pipeline gas and term contract volumes, sources said.

LNG prices have risen due to tight supply in the Atlantic basin. The Platts JKM daily physical assessment hit $71.01/MMBtu Aug. 25, the highest since $84.76/MMBtu March 7, according to S&P Global data.