Vitol buys 1LNG cargo from Nigeria, Korea Gas picks 6 in Australia, Russia

Trading house Vitol has purchased a single liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargo offered by Nigeria’s Bonny Island export plant following a tender. The Vitol-chartered Lobito tanker, currently positioned in the mid-Atlantic after delivering a cargo to Brazil, is heading in the direction of the Nigerian plant. Vitol is likely to deliver the Nigerian cargo to southern Europe, possibly Spain as falling prices and weak demand make diversions to Asia unprofitable.

Meanwhile, Korea Gas Corp, the world’s biggest buyer of liquefied natural gas (LNG), has won a total of around six cargoes from two tenders launched by Australia’s North West Shelf and Russia’s Sakhalin export projects.

The tenders, which closed recently, saw the North West Shelf plant offer to sell four firm cargoes plus potential for more, while Sakhalin offered two firm cargoes as well as an optional third shipment.

Kogas, as the company is known, purchased all the firm cargoes offered by both projects at a price believed to be around $9.50 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) or slightly lower.

The estimated transaction price is lower than where some traders believed the spot market price of LNG to be, at around $9.80 per mmBtu.