Nigeria Is running out of places to put its LNG production
The west African nation, one of the world’s top producers of the superchilled fuel, continued to send out tankers of LNG even as demand slumped in line with the virus-stricken global economy.
Iran Press/ Africa: Nigeria, one of the oldest and biggest suppliers of LNG to Europe, highlights the challenges all producers are facing in the coronavirus pandemic. As demand has collapsed, buyers obliged to take cargoes under long-term contracts are postponing deliveries they don’t need.
Almost half of the world’s LNG vessels currently deemed floating storage are laden with Nigerian gas, according to commodity tracking firm Kpler.
Record-low prices for the fuel also mean traders prefer to keep LNG in terminal tanks. That’s created the highest inventories at European import facilities for the time of the year since at least 2013 as the chart below shows.
“The worst is yet to come, we will likely see super low prices in late June, July, August,” said Satapathy. “We are still in the declining mode, we haven’t reached the bottom yet, the bottom will be in late summer.”
One vessel, the LNG River Niger, departed from Nigeria in the second half of March and still hasn’t unloaded, according to Kpler. The ship is in the Arabian Sea, according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg.
205/219
Read More:
Nigeria: Gunmen Kill 29 in Plateau, Sokoto Communities
Nigeria: Lagos pipeline blast kills 15
Nigerian police kill teenager for supporting Sheikh Zakzaki