Prices of spot LNG for March delivery to northeast Asia saw their largest year-over-year drop on record, plunging 61.7% from March 2014 to average $7.436/MMBtu, according to latest Platts Japan/Korea Marker (Platts JKM™) data for month-ahead delivery.
This is the largest year-over-year fall since Platts began assessing the JKM in February 2009. The figure reflects the daily Platts JKM assessed between 16th January and 13th February, expressed as a monthly average.
In 2014, March JKM daily prices had reached a historic high of $20.20/MMBtu on assessment date 14th February. By comparison, March-delivery JKM prices in 2015 bottomed at $6.80/MMBtu on assessment date 5th February, the lowest since June 2010.
“Moderate temperatures and high buyer inventories continued to cap demand for spot cargoes in northeast Asia, despite the lower prices in March,” said Stephanie Wilson, managing editor of Asia LNG at Platts, a leading global energy, petrochemicals and metals information provider and a premier source of benchmark price references. “Exacerbating the oversupply were cheaper competing fuels, which many utility power generators opted to burn rather than LNG.”
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