<p>For years now, the international LNG trade has been based primarily on long-term contracts between buyers and sellers, and those deals have been indexed to oil prices.</p>
The Panama Canal expansion, set for a January 2016 debut, will slash the travel time for larger ships ferrying U.S.-sourced LNG and LPGs from the Gulf Coast (or East Coast) to Japanese and other Asian buyers. And—no surprise here--for ship charterers, time is money, and the ability to make three roundtrips instead of two every three months is a big deal. Being able to use ships with larger, “New Panamax” dimensions is welcome news to Asian utilities awaiting delivery of American LNG, and to Asian petrochemical manufacturers seeking to diversify their LPG sourcing and/or shift from naphtha to LPGs as their preferred feedstock. In today’s blog, we continue our look at what longer, wider and deeper canal locks mean for U.S. hydrocarbon exports.
