Japan’s February LNG imports climb almost 5 pct

Liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports into Japan, the world’s largest buyer of the chilled fuel, increased 4.8 percent in February, according to the provisional data released by Japan’s Ministry of Finance.

Japan imported 7.79 million mt of LNG in February, as compared to 7.43 million mt in the same month the year before.

This is the second straight month that Japan boosted its LNG imports as in January the country’s demand for the chilled fuel for power generation rose on the back of low winter temperatures.

Japan paid about $3.22 billion for LNG imports last month, a rise of 1.6 percent when compared to the same month in 2016, the ministry’s data shows.

Japan’s average price of spot LNG arriving during February reached $8.8 per mmBtu, up from $7.3 per mmBtu in January, METI said earlier this month.

To remind, Japan imported 83.34 million mt of LNG in 2016, as compared to 85.05 million mt the year before.

This was the second drop in Japan’s annual LNG imports since the devastating earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 which caused Japan to shut down its nuclear industry.

LNG World News Staff