LNGC

The Panama Canal expansion completed in June 2016 was expected to allow much larger LNG tankers to move product from Sabine Pass LNG and other Gulf Coast export terminals through the canal to Asian and Latin American customers. But water levels at Gatun Lake, which provides the fresh water needed to operate the canal’s locks, have been well below normal in recent years, limiting opportunities to use the canal and complicating plans to ramp up LNG flows through it. In today’s RBN blog, we look at the challenges of moving LNG through the Panama Canal, how access to the waterway has been affected by drought and climate conditions over the past decade, and the impact on the LNG market. 

China regained its place as the world’s largest LNG importer in 2023, a title it lost in 2022 due to COVID-related shutdowns. Given that China only started importing LNG in 2006, the country’s demand growth — imports last year totaled 71.3 million metric tons (~9.5 Bcf/d), just under 18% of globally traded demand — can only be described as spectacular. But this unprecedented growth story is undergoing fundamental changes which are likely to result in major impacts to LNG commerce not only in China but in the Far East and possibly beyond. In today’s RBN blog, we look at some of these changes and ask how the Big Three national oil companies (NOCs) — CNOOC, PetroChina and Sinopec — could change their business models as smaller provincial gas utility buyers pursue their own LNG imports.