北美液化天然气行业仍在挣扎

据6月9日Trade Arabia消息：由于经济放缓、需求减少，导致液化天然气长期供应合同被取消，进口国延迟交货。以至于液化能力利用率降低，主要体现在美国--全球超冷气体的主要供应商之一。此外，全球数据分析公司GlobalData表示，天然气价格下跌加剧了该地区液化天然气供应商和上游天然气生产企业的危机。

GlobalData石油和天然气分析师艾哈迈德称:“由于油价大幅下跌，以石油为索引的长期液化天然气合约与现货合约之间的价差已大幅缩小。因此，液化天然气生产商可能难以利用较高价值的长期合同来降低现货价格，从而保持收入增长。由于不确定性仍然很大，北美的几家公司可能会重新考虑在即将到来的数十亿美元天然气项目上的支出，并推迟最终投资决定。

鉴于目前市场状况不平衡，荷兰皇家壳牌公司退出了由能源转让公司拥有和运营的查尔斯湖项目。如果没有潜在的投资者来取代壳牌，项目的最终投资决定可能会被推迟，项目启动年份或将推迟两年左右，直到2027年。

艾哈迈德总结道:“尽管当前危机对北美液化天然气行业的短期影响可能会导致液化天然气生产受限或新投资的不确定性，但长期影响却可能是供应过剩，这会使北美生产商难以保持成本竞争力。”

冯娟 摘译自 Trade Arabia

原文如下：

North American LNG sector continues to struggle

Reduced demand due to economic slowdown, coupled with the Covid-19 outbreak, has led to cancellations of long-term liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply contracts and cargo deferments by importing counties.

This has led to low utilisation of liquefaction capacity, primarily in the US - one of the key suppliers of the super-chilled gas globally. Furthermore, the fall in gas prices deepens the crisis for LNG suppliers and upstream gas producing companies in the region, says GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

Haseeb Ahmed, Oil and Gas analyst at GlobalData, comments: “Due to a sharp fall in in oil prices, spreads between oil-indexed long-term LNG contracts and spot contracts have reduced considerably. As a result, LNG producers might struggle to leverage higher value long-term contracts for weaker spot-prices that can keep their revenues up. As uncertainty still looms large, several companies in North America may rethink their spends on upcoming multibillion-dollar gas projects and delay final investment decisions (FIDs).”

Failing to secure a long-term buyer commitment for its Driftwood project due to the current crisis, Tellurian Investments is likely to delay its FID by nearly two years. This is likely to push the project timeline, which was initially expected to go online in 2023, by two years. Similar is the case with Pieridae Energy, which is delaying its FID on the Goldboro project from Q3 2020 to Q2 2021 – likely to push the start of the project by a year to 2025.

In view of current market conditions and COVID-19 pandemic, Royal Dutch Shell has pulled out of the Lake Charles project, owned and operated by Energy Transfer. In the absence of a potential investor to replace Shell, the FID of the project may get delayed and the project start year is likely to be pushed back by around two years to 2027.

Ahmed concludes: “While the short-term impact of the current crisis on North American LNG sector may result in limiting LNG production or uncertainty over new investments, the long-term impact can be supply overhang that can make it difficult for North American producers to remain cost competitive.”