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Enbridge calls National Post story on PetroChina building Northern Gateway “speculation”

Updated

Enbridge late Wednesday, March 28, 2012, issued a statement saying that a story in the National Post/Financial Post that PetroChina could bid to build the Northern Gateway pipeline is “speculation.”

In PetroChina bids to help build $5.5-billion Northern Gateway pipeline columnist Claudia Cattaneo reported that:

Chinese investment in Canada’s energy sector could move to a new level if PetroChina wins a bid to build the controversial Northern Gateway oil sands pipeline.

The largest of China’s three state-controlled oil companies has expressed an interest in building the $5.5-billion project across the northern Canadian Rockies and is considering purchasing an equity stake, said Pat Daniel, president and CEO of proponent Enbridge Inc.

“They have made the point to us that they are very qualified in building pipelines, and we will take that into consideration when we are looking for contractors,” Mr. Daniel said in an interview. “It’s an open bid process. They are a very big organization, they build a lot of pipelines, and they would love to be involved from what they have told me.”

Within hours, Enbridge Northern Gateway issued its own statement:

To speculate at this time about who might be contracted to build a project that has yet to receive regulatory approval is premature in the extreme.

Construction of Northern Gateway would be through an open bid process, and to be successful any bid would have to meet Enbridge’s stringent requirements and meet all federal and provincial employment standards. Enbridge is firmly committed to hiring as many local people as possible to build and operate Northern Gateway and is not anticipating bringing in overseas workers to construct or operate the project.

“British Columbians and Albertans deserve to know that providing local employment is a top priority for Enbridge Northern Gateway,” said Janet Holder, Executive Vice-President of Western Access and the senior executive in charge of the pipeline project. “Ensuring a local workforce is skilled and work-ready in order to fully participate in, and benefit from, the economic benefits associated with the project is a priority for Northern Gateway.”

The Financial Post report says the Chinese company stands a good chance of presenting a competitive bid, but it is likely that Chinese construction of a major Canadian energy project would increase anxiety among Canadians already worried about China’s expanding ownership of Canadian resources.

While there is a labour shortage in the energy sector at the moment, the Financial Post says Canada could use could use a hand from an experienced Chinese oil company, but turning over construction to PetroChina could mean fewer construction jobs in B.C., “where Northern Gateway is a hard sell because of perceptions the province would bear all the risk of a spill, while the rewards would go primarily to Alberta’s oil sands sector.”

The Enbridge statement also says:

Northern Gateway will shape its hiring and procurement policies so that contractors and sub-contractors working on the pipeline and the proposed marine terminal maximize local hiring and training opportunities, particularly for Aboriginal people – who are expected to comprise approximately 15% of regional construction employment.

An education and training fund of $1.5 million has recently been developed by Northern Gateway. The fund will support flexible community based training associated with the pipeline construction.

Tailings “smother everything on sea floor” at deep Norwegian fjords, scientists say: BBC

The BBC, reporting from the Ocean Sciences Meeting in Salt Lake City, says Norwegian scientists are becoming concerned about dumping huge amounts of tailings in the country’s fjords.

Reporter Jonathan Amos in Scrutiny for Norwegian fjord rock disposal says for decades some Norwegian mining companies have been using pipes at 23 sites to dump tailings as far down as 200 metres in Norway’s deep fjords. Companies are seeking permits to do more dumping.

However, there have been no major scientific studies of the consequences of dumping tailings into the deep fjords. Now the Norwegian Institute for Ocean Research (Niva) is embarking on a three year study to look at the consequences of tailing dumping on the deep ocean bottom.

The BBC quotes Prof Andrew Sweetman, a research scientist with Niva as saying,

The mining companies send these tailings down a long pipe, down below the euphotic zone, below 200m, and essentially smother everything on the seafloor…

All the animals that live in the sediments that provide food for larger invertebrates and fish, for example, will be killed off.

Potentially, you are also going to kill off a lot of deep water corals.

And you can get extremely turbid water columns, and it can stay turbid for long periods of time. So, it’s a big deal”

Amos also quotes Lisa Levin, from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, as saying that the Norwegian tailings story was a classic example of an activity being undertaken without fully understanding its consequences.

Links: Harper, in China, vows to push Northern Gateway while attacking “foreign influence”

Reuters and Bloomberg both report from China that Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said in Guangzho that his government is “committed to ensuring” that the Northern Gateway project went ahead.”

Reuters Canada PM vows to ensure key oil pipeline is built.

Bloomberg Harper Says Canada Committed to Selling More Oil to China

The Toronto Star took a slightly different approach, headlining, Harper in China: PM blasts foreign money in oilands debate while welcoming China Harper used a keynote speech…. to slam the “foreign money and influence” behind critics of Canada’s oil sands even as he welcomed Chinese investment in Canada’s energy sector.

The Bloomberg story also quotes Harper on foreign influence, but far down in the story, reporting Harper as saying: “Will we uphold our responsibility to put the interests of Canadians ahead of foreign money and influence that seek to obstruct development in Canada.”

Reuters casts doubt on the integrity of the Joint Review Panel process by saying: “An independent energy regulator — which could in theory reject the project — last month started two years of hearings into the pipeline. In remarks that appeared to cast some doubt on the regulator’s eventual findings, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said it had become “increasingly clear that it is in Canada’s national interest to diversify our energy markets”.

China frustrated

Earlier The Globe and Mail quoted Enbridge CEO Pat Daniel as saying: “Chinese oil executives are growing frustrated with regulatory delays in plans for the Northern Gateway pipeline… Daniel said despite keen interest here in Canadian oil and gas reserves, this seemingly made-in-heaven match is threatened by delays in the company’s efforts to establish a $5.5-billion, 1,177-kilometre pipeline to carry bitumen from Alberta’s oil sands to a deep sea port at Kitimat, B.C. “They’re frustrated, as we are, in the length of time it takes…They’re very anxious to diversify their supply, they’re very dependent on the Middle East for crude.

Terrorism

Meanwhile the Minister of Public Safety, Vic Toews, on the official public safety website, lists “environmentalism” (along with white supremacy, animal rights and anti-capitalism) in an official report on terror threats to Canada, Building Resilience Against Terrorism: Canada’s Anti-Terrorism Strategy.

Foreign Funding

According to The Edmonton Journal, the Conservative MP for Fort MacMurray, Brian Jean “called for federal legislation that would both block foreign funding of the “radical” Canadian environmental movement and lessen the possibility outsiders are directly paying aboriginal chiefs to oppose major projects, such as the Northern Gateway pipeline.” See Alta. MP wants law to block foreign funding of environmentalists

Update: Peter O’Neill writing in The Vancouver Sun, has more details on Brian Jean’s accusations, including transcripts from Hansard in Tory MP Brian Jean’s corruption warning — the full story

Why did I write about this? I’ve heard completely unsubstantiated allegations relating to the efforts made to advance and oppose Enbridge Inc.’s pipeline. This was the first time I heard a politician raise this publicly, and I decided to write a story about it. I asked him if he’d be surprised if the Chinese government, which has a huge interest in Northern Gateway going ahead, might also be tossing money at First Nations to support the project. He wouldn’t touch that one.

The upshot? I think Jean’s assertion brings some whispers out of the shadows. And I think his comments might play well to the Conservative base. One of my most abrasive fans accused me of being a “shameless shill for big oil” because I quoted Jean on the matter.

Kitimat key to Canada’s future relationship with China, Asia Pacific Foundation says

An editorial published today by the president of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada says that the media concentrating on Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s trip to Beijing has it wrong, the key to the relationship between Canada and China is in Kitimat, not Beijing.

In the editorial, President’s View, Future of Canada-Asia Energy Relations in Kitimat , foundation president Yuen Pau Woo reflects on a recent visit to Kitimat where he met representatives of the First Nations, industry, and municipality.

Woo says: “Kitimat’s livelihood depends on trade with Asia and the community knows it.”

The editorial lists such projects as the Kitimat modernization porject at the Rio Tinto Alcan, KMLNG’s Kitimat LNG project, other proposed LNG projects, “sharply increased vessel traffic through the Douglas Channel” and, of course, the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipline.

Woo’s key paragraph reads:

The future of Canada-Asia energy relations is not about Beijing; it is about Kitimat. It is in this remote coastal community that the confluence of Asia’s growing economic clout, Canada’s abundance of natural resources, the livelihoods and economic aspirations of First Nations, the challenge of supporting rural communities, and the pristine environment of the Canadian wilderness have created conditions that demand new forms of partnership for a sustainable future.

Woo says that “the Alcan Modernization Project and the Kitimat LNG Plant are excellent examples of community and First Nations consultation and collaboration that have so far yielded positive results,” without mentioning how long it took to come to those agreements; the decades of problems outlined by Haisla leaders before the Joint Review Panel, and that the current agreements are just the start to redress those problems.

On Northern Gateway, Woo concludes:

The challenges facing the Northern Gateway Pipeline project are of a different order of magnitude, but even on this most contentious of projects, I would not underestimate the capacity of stakeholders to find a uniquely Canadian solution that is based on mutual benefit, compromise, and the long-term good

Three new powerful players said to join the BC West Coast LNG export rush

The race to ship liquified natural gas to Asia is getting hotter with three new powerhouses joining the scramble for west coast export terminals.

The Prince Rupert Port Authority announced Tuesday, Feb. 7, that it is working with an energy powerhouse BG Group, on a feasibiity study for an LNG terminal at Ridley Island.

At the same time The Globe and Mail reports that there are rumours that Exxon Mobile is “examining LNG options” in the northwest. The paper also quotes sources as saying the Japanese firm Itochu is looking to export gas via Kitsault, where there is an abandoned molybdenum mine, town and port.

British Gas was once the retail domestic supplier of natural gas to the UK market. The company split in two in 1997, with BG Group becoming an international exploration and energy production company.

Itochu is a 150-year old Japanese company which began as Chibou Itoh’s one man linen trading company, later adding drapery shops and over more than a century expanding operations to become a major international conglomerate with strong interests in the energy sector. According to the company website, Itochu is also a player in the solar energy and bio-ethanol fields.

“The Prince Rupert Port Authority has engaged with the BG Group to consider Prince Rupert for a potential LNG export facility. The BG Group is number two in the world in LNG, next to Shell and they are number two depending on what measurements you look at, so they are already a big player in that industry” according to Shaun Stevenson, vice-president of Marketing and Business Development for the Prince Rupert Port Authority.

“We have an agreement signed to provide them a site and to secure that site to examine the suitability of it and the feasibility of the facility…We have given them a period of time to conduct the feasibility and suitability study, and if it is determined to be viable from the preliminary work that is done then we will look at further development,” he said.

David Byford, spokesman for the BG Group in Houston, confirmed the deal has been signed but cautioned “Prince Rupert is one of the areas we are looking at, and we are in the very early feasibility study stage.”

“The west coast of Canada is certainly advantageous for LNG export, and there is a lot of natural gas in BC as well.”

Prince Rupert port spokesperson Michael Gurney says it will be 12 to 24 months before there’s a clear commitment on the project.

A spokesman with Itochu declined comment when contacted by The Globe and Mail. Kitsault, near Alice Arm, in the traditional territory of the Nisga’a nation, was the site of a short lived molybedenum venture by the Phelps Dodge company. After the mine was abandoned, the town was bought by Indo-American businessman Krishnan Suthanthiran and is now promoted as a nature and wilderness retreat, called Heaven on Earth.

The Globe and Mail also quotes sources as saying that Exxon Mobil Corp., which has substantial natural gas reserves in northeastern B.C., has also been examining LNG options. Pius Rolheiser, a spokesman with Canada’s Imperial Oil Ltd., which is majority-owned by Exxon, said in a statement to the Globe and Mail: “Imperial continuously reviews a variety of opportunities to increase value to our shareholders. As a matter of practice, and for competitive reasons, we do not discuss specific strategies.”

PetroChina looks to Kitimat as it spends $1 billion for Shell shale gas in northeastern BC

PetroChina has bought a 20 per cent stake in Shell Canada’s Groundbirch shale-gas project in north eastern BC, leading to media reports that PetroChina is also investing in Shell’s planned Kitimat liquified natural gas export terminal in Kitimat.

The Groundbirch “play” in the northeastern BC shale gas fields produces 180 million cubic feet of gas a day form 250 wells.

A Hong Kong website, FinanceAsia, reported that PetroChina is paying $1 billion for the stake in the northeast BC shale gas operation.

China Daily confirmed the story, quoting Mao Zefeng, the Beijing-based spokesman of PetroChina, who declined to give the value of the transaction.

China Daily said Shell and PetroChina’s parent agreed in June to increase cooperation in energy exploration in China, estimated to hold the world’s largest reserves of shale gas. The semi-official newspaper says Petro China is looking to Canada to obtain drilling technology and expertise.

“It’s a continuation of our cooperation in China, and we can learn about shale-gas exploration and production by being a partner in the Canadian shale-gas project,” Mao said. “The project will also bring us good investment returns.”

Barron’s also reported that China is looking to get more experience shale gas, quoting Benchmark analyst Mark Gilman who told Dow Jones Newswires. “They are trying to learn about this business, on the basis of their belief that it will better position them to assess and develop similar resources within China,” he said. In fact, Shell and PetroChina are exploring for shale together in China, so the Canadian deal may be a “quid pro quo” gesture to Shell, he added.

Shell executives said at a meeting in London on Thursday that the company has invested $400 million in shale gas exploration in China, funding 15 wells with more in the future.

Last fall, Shell purchased the old Methanex site and the Methanex marine terminal in Kitimat.

Both The Globe and Mail and Postmedia News are tying the investment directly to Shell’s Kitimat LNG export project.

The Globe and Mail says that PetroChina as well as Japan’s Mitsubishi and Korean Gas are stakeholders in the Shell Kitimat LNG project.

PetroChina’s had agreed with Encana, a partner in the KM LNG project to invest $5.4-billion in the company’s shale gas operations in British Columbia. That deal collapsed last fall after the two companies could not agree on finances.

PetroChina is also a heavy investor in the Alberta bitumen sands.

The deal between PetroChina and Shell came on the same day that National Energy Board approved the BC LNG project, the second one to be proposed for Kitimat. The first, approved in October, is the Kitimat LNG project owned by the KM LNG partnership.

It also comes a few days before Prime Minister Stephen Harper begins an official visit to China.

Analysis: Rumour that China, not Canada, will build Gateway adding to pipeline controversy

On the same day:

In Davos, Prime Minister Stephen Harper told the World Economic Forum that his government consider it a “national priority” to ensure the country has the “capacity to export our energy products beyond the United States, and specifically to Asia…In this regard, we will soon take action to ensure that major energy and mining projects are not subject to unnecessary regulatory delays — that is, delay merely for the sake of delay.” (See Globe and Mail Harper vows ‘major transformations’ to position Canada for growth)
The New York Times in In China, Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad exposes the horrendous, almost slave like conditions in China’s dark satanic mills that create and polish the shining iPads (that probably millions actually to use to read the Times.)
In The Ottawa Citizen, Terry Glavin writes Questions Canadians should be asking about China. The University of Victoria journalism professor takes a hard look at the growing power around the world of Sinopec, the Chinese state petroleum company, one of the biggest backers of the Northern Gateway pipeline, saying that “Sinopec became co-author of Stephen Harper’s new foreign policy and energy strategy.”
In the Vancouver Sun, Mark Jaccard, of Simon Fraser university, takes a wider view of the Northern Gateway pipeline and its effect on greenhouse gas emissions in Pipeline itself not the only problem we should worry about and also questions the role of China in oil sands and pipeline development.
A quiet rumour has been heard more and more in Kitimat for the past month, that China, not Enbridge, will build the Northern Gateway pipeline, bringing in thousands of Chinese workers, living in work camps for the pipeline construction.

You hear a rumour once, it’s just a rumour, not worth reporting.

You hear it three or more times; a couple times in quiet conversation with different people, then overhear it in a Shoppers Drug Mart lineup, it means that rumour, unlikely, in fact far fetched, as it would be in reality, shows that the pipeline debate is touching a raw nerve in northwestern British Columbia.

On its surface, the rumour could never be correct, Canada would never agree (as this country did when building the railways more than a century ago) to bring in thousands of Chinese workers to build the pipeline across the British Columbia wilderness.

On the other hand, one thing fuelling the rumour is that when China invests in other countries, often there are compounds full of workers and managers from China, who capture the best jobs in a project, leaving the low-level work to local labour. The media has reporting Chinese abuse of workers in Africa for the past few years. The latest in The Guardian on January 2, 2012, reported Workers claim abuse as China adds Zimbabwe to its scramble for Africa

Underlying the rumour is fear, fear of further loss of jobs to China.

In northwestern BC, the saw mills are closing, while raw logs are shipped to China. Each day CN hauls huge coal trains (coal, of course, one of the greatest contributors to greenhouse gases) to the port of Prince Rupert, returning with intermodal trains, averaging 170 cars, with containers full of cheap Chinese made goods destined mostly for the United States.

According to new poll, published in The Calgary Herald, 84 per cent of Albertans want the bitumen upgraded in the province. (Marc Henry The politics of upgrading Alberta bitumen )

At the same time, the Harper government continues to demonize the environmental objections to the Northern Gateway pipeline, which leads at least one columnist on The Calgary Herald, Stephen Ewart, to say Northern Gateway pipeline debate could stand better diplomacy quoting Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver as saying

“You wouldn’t hear from American special interest groups, celebrity environmentalists and champagne socialists that Canada’s oilsands are subject to the toughest environmental monitoring and regulation in the world,” Oliver said.

Ewart, who is pro-pipeline, goes on to say:

Canada needs an export pipeline to a location on the West Coast to sustain the economic impact on the national economy from oilsands development. What isn’t needed is more antagonistic comments from government ministers.

It will likely take a lot more than diplomatic niceties to calm the pipeline controversy.

The one promise from Enbridge, the Alberta bitmen sands and the Harper government that may have some traction in northwestern British Columbia is tens of thousands of temporary construction jobs. It is well known that there will be very few permanent jobs from the Northern Gateway pipeline in this part of Canada.

Now it appears that some people here in the northwest are starting to believe there won’t even be construction jobs along the Northern Gateway pipeline.

The Calgary oil-patch, who today cheered Environment Minister Peter Kent when he said he would fast track the regulatory process for energy development, should take note, the rumour about vast compounds of Chinese workers building a pipeline through the BC bush is not coming from “champagne socialists” but from working people who want solid, good, long-term, well-paying jobs. These are people who also fish, hunt, hike and boat and are worried about the environmental impact of the pipeline and trying to balance jobs and the environment.

The campaign against “foreign” environmentalists, fronted by Ezra Levant and Ethical Oil but likely originating in the inner circles of the Conservative political war room, may be backfiring.

Raise the question of foreign interference and that incites all kinds of political rumours, rumours unintended in the political bubble just inside the Ottawa Queensway.

The China worker rumour appears to have started just a short while after Ethical Oil’s campaign against the foreign environmentalists began to attract widespread media attention.

The China worker rumour doesn’t come from the political commentary set who published columns today, but from the coffee shops, drug store lineups and Legion Halls.

The China worker rumour shows a lack of trust in northwestern BC for Enbridge, for Sinopec, for the province of Alberta, for the Harper government.

As far fetched as the rumour is, the idea that Chinese workers will build the pipeline can only escalate the controversy over the Northern Gateway pipeline.

Blue Horizon obtains injunction to stop Methanex equipment leaving Kitimat site

Old Methanex site, Kitimat BC — A truck enters the old Methanex site, now being dismantled, on the snowy afternoon of January 13, 2012. (Robin Rowland/Northwest Coast Energy News)

Blue Horizon, the company that had and lost the contract to dismantle the old Methanex site in Kitimat has obtained an injunction preventing the buyer of the equipment from removing the material from the site by the Kitimat River.

Last November, Ko Yo Development of Hong Kong cancelled its contract with Blue Horizon that would have seen the equipment in the plant dismantled and shipped to China.

Part of the old Methanex site is now operated by Cenovus and is used to ship condensate to the Alberta bitumen sands by rail.

Shell purchased the Methanex site and marine terminal in October, 2011, as part of its plans for a liquified natural gas facility at Kitimat. At the time of the contract cancellation in November, Shell spokesman Stephen Doolan told Northwest Coast Energy News “The transaction … does not affect Shell’s purchase of the Cenovus property, nor is Shell involved in any way.” On Friday, Doolan said he had nothing more to add to the original statement.

A news release issued by Blue Horizon says:

Blue Horizon Industries Inc. (“Blue Horizon” or the “Corporation”) (CNSX:BH) announces that its wholly owned subsidiary Blue Horizon Energy Inc. (“BH Energy”), on behalf of its wholly owned division Blue Horizon Contracting, obtained on January 12, 2012 an injunction in the Supreme Court of British Columbia, Vancouver Registry, prohibiting Ko Yo Development Co. Ltd., a Hong Kong incorporated company (“KoYo”) and Guangan Lotusan Natural Gas Chemicals Co. Ltd., a corporation incorporated under the laws of the Peoples Republic of China (“GLN”) from removing any portion of the dismantled ammonia or methanol plants from the Province of British Columbia unless and until KoYo / GLN posts security in court in the amount of $4,180,000 by way of an irrevocable letter of credit or other security acceptable to BH Energy and to the Court.

Mr. Don Allan, President and CEO of Blue Horizon, stated “We are pleased that the Supreme Court of British Columbia ruled quickly and decisively in this matter by issuing the injunction against KoYo / GLN while at the same time awarding significant security for costs and court costs to BH Energy. We are continuing to focus our attention on completing the bid process for a number of new high value dismantling contracts expected to be awarded for execution in 2012 as well as advancing our other operating businesses.”

The dispute between Blue Horizon, the Red Deer based contractor and Hong Kong based Ko Yo goes back months. The original contract was awarded in February, 2011, renegotiated in September 2011 and then cancelled in November, 2011.

Bula sign on Methanex site — On the Methanex Project sign at the entrance to the decomissioning site, stencils from Bula.ca, the new contractor, can be seen overwriting Blue Horizon, the former contractor. (Robin Rowland/Northwest Coast Energy News)

The dismantling of the Methanex plant has since resumed with work being handled by a new contractor, Bula Enterprises, also of Red Deer. A profile of Bula Enterprises on the website shows that it has extensive construction experience, much of it in the Alberta oil patch, including projects for Shell Albian, CNRL, Suncor, Conoco Phillips in Fort McMurray. As of late Friday afternoon, Bula had not returned calls seeking comment on how the injunction might affect the deocommissioning.

Ko Yo Chemical (Group) Limited, formerly Ko Yo Ecological Agrotech (Group) Limited, is a Hong Kong based investment holding company. According to a company profile it is engaged in the research and development, manufacture, marketing and distribution of chemical products, chemical fertilizers and bulk blending fertilizers and has a natural gas energy utilization project at Dazhou City, Sichuan Province, China. The company has a number of subsidiaries with similar names.

Links January 6, 2012

Vancouver Sun series
Oil spills costly to companies and environment, yet seem inevitable despite technology

Financial Post
Tiny port, new energy battleground

Chinese companies take the long view on Northern Gateway pipeline

Georgia Straight
ForestEthics responds to new poll on Northern Gateway oil pipeline

Globe and Mail
China’s oil-sands deal will have lasting impact

Athabasca deal gives China an oil sands project of its own

Montreal Gazette
B.C. pipeline foes unmoved by Enbridge oath Michigan spill; Oil route would cross many streams

Wall Street Journal Marketwatch
Big Gateway pipeline hearings starting in B.C. Commentary: Battle lines drawn, oil companies finally come forward

Links: Japan seeking more sources of LNG

Energy LNG Links

Post-earthquake Japan is said to be one of the main markets for liquified natural gas that will flow through the LNG terminals under construction and proposed for the port of Kitimat. Since the earthquake Japan has been making major purchases of LNG from both Qatar and Russia.

The Doha, Qatar-based, Gulf Times is reporting: Qatar LNG exports to Japan up

Qatar is about to overtake Indonesia as the third-largest exporter of liquefied natural gas to Japan, which has been increasing LNG imports to generate electricity to offset capacity lost due to the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
Japan, the world largest LNG buyer, imported 870,072 metric tonnes of LNG from Qatar in July, up 53% on year, finance ministry data showed yesterday.
During the same month, Japan imported 731,557 tonnes of LNG from Indonesia, down 36% from a year earlier, the data showed.
In the first seven months of this year, Japan bought 5.64mn tonnes of LNG from Qatar and 6.33mn tonnes from Indonesia, up 28% and down 15% from a year earlier, respectively.

At the same time, the industry (subscription only) Petroleum Economist newsletter, is reporting that shortages from Qatar is causing concern in the UK natural gas market, Qatar LNG outage rattles UK gas market

UK gas prices jumped over 10% this week after the world’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) producer, Qatargas, said it would shut its facilities for rolling maintenance over the coming months. Last year, according to Cedigaz, the UK imported about 20% of the 93.8 billion cubic metres of gas it consumed in the form of LNG, making the country particularly vulnerable to global LNG supply issues.

Japan is still a heavy buyer of liquified natural gas in the spot market, the Platt’s newsletters report. Kyushu Electric secures four spot LNG cargoes over Oct-Nov

Japan’s Kyushu Electric has secured sufficient additional LNG requirements for autumn, with a total of around four spot LNG cargoes for October-November, a source close to the matter told Platts Tuesday.

Kyushu Electric’s additional LNG volumes this autumn could reach 240,000-260,000 mt, assuming that the purchased volumes are the standard 60,000-65,000 mt LNG cargoes, according to Platts calculations.