BAKU, Azerbaijan, Dec. 24
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
In the third quarter of 2019, Qatar remained the largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplier of the European Union (EU), raising its market share further to 35 percent, which was the highest since Q3 2018, Trend reports citing European Commission’s Gas Market Report.
“ In this quarter Russia remained the second most important source, with a share of 15 percent within the total EU LNG imports (down from 19 percent in Q2 2019), ahead of Nigeria (14 percent, as opposed to 11 percent in Q2 2019) and the United States (12 percent, remaining constant since the last quarter). The share of Algeria remained around 10 percent in Q3 2019, while that of Norway and Trinidad and Tobago did not change too much either (both around 6-7 percent within the total EU LNG imports),” reads the report.
In general, EU LNG imports still showed huge increase in Q3 2019, reaching 23.2 bcm, up by 75 percent compared to the third quarter of 2018, though the amount of imported LNG was lower than in the previous quarter and the year-on-year increase rate was also down, compared to the rates over 100 percent in the first half of 2019.
“The total EU LNG imports amounted to an estimated €2.6 billion in Q3 2019. With the exception of Sweden, where small scale imports practically halved, all LNG importing countries in the EU showed measurable (double or triple digit) increases in percent compared to Q3 2018,” said the European Commission.
In the biggest importer Spain imports (7.3 bcm) more than doubled in year-on-year comparison in Q3 2019, similarly to the UK, Belgium, Greece and Lithuania. In Italy imports went up by 90 percent over the same period, while in the other countries the increase varied between 11 percent and 51 percent. Following Spain, in Q3 2019 the biggest importers were France (3.7 bcm), Italy (3.5 bcm), Belgium (1.8 bcm), Portugal and the United Kingdom (1.7 bcm each).
In the third quarter of 2019, LNG market prices in Europe remained closely aligned with their East Asian peers, implying that Europe offered a competitive destination for LNG cargos, especially if shipment costs are also taken into account (in the case of cargos from the Atlantic Basin and the Middle East). As liquidity of the Dutch TTF grows, this hub is gradually becoming a global LNG reference price (though temporarily diverging from TTF), which might have a more important impact on the Europe-Asia price relations than weather conditions or other one-off events resulting in temporary price divergence between the two regions.
---
Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn