An increase in spot and short-term LNG trading is a ‘gamechanger’ for LNG bunkering, says Jerome Leprince-Ringuet, Managing Director, Total Marine Fuels Global Solutions, Singapore.
Speaking at SIBCON today (7 October), Leprince-Ringuet said the rise of short-term trading ‘was not expected at this level a few years ago’ as gas projects typically aimed to sell production ahead of time.
‘To see more and more volumes on the spot market is a good signal for us in the bunker industry because we need that,’ Leprince-Ringuet said. ‘We need to have a spot market to trade.’
Leprince-Ringuet noted that during 2019, 34% of LNG trade was either on the spot market or short-term deals, and these accounted for 119 million metric tonnes (mt) of gas – ‘more than enough for the LNG bunkering market today’.
Leprince-Ringuet also pointed to a rise in JKM lots traded per year, rising from 35 million mt in 2018 to 95 million mt in 2019. This figure is expected to reach 150 million by the end of this year, he said.
‘This means globally that a change in the LNG market dynamics is fundamentally evolving towards spot or short-term trading,’ said Leprince-Ringuet. ‘And this is all good news for us [the LNG bunkering sector].’