Singapore: Liquefied natural gas producers may earn smaller margins as low demand and new export plants lead to a record surplus and lower prices, Wood Mackenzie Consultants told Bloomberg.
New projects in Qatar, Yemen and Indonesia may reach capacity next year, said Frank Harris, global head of LNG at the Edinburgh-based firm. Ventures planned for 2015-20, including those helmed by ConocoPhillips, Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Woodside Petroleum Ltd., may be forced to sell the fuel for less as supplies exceed consumption. ?"There's quite a lot of surplus this year," Harris, who has advised international oil companies, said by telephone. "Next year will be worse and it may peak in 2011." ?The surplus may ease after 2012 as fewer projects were approved in the past three years, he said, declining to quantify the surplus. ?Proposed LNG capacity of about 130 million metric tons a year is exceeding 80 million tons of uncontracted demand in the Pacific Ocean area over the next decade, Sanford C. Bernstein said in a report last month. Prices of the cleaner-burning fuel in the spot market have crashed from more than $20 per million British thermal units last year to less than $5 currently, based on data from Asian importing nations. [17/08/09]
Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved. Seatrade, a trading name of Informa Markets (UK) Limited. Add Seatrade Maritime News to your Google News feed.
