MILAN: Asian spot liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices rose this week as demand firmed for October deliveries, although trading activity stayed thin.
Spot LNG prices for October delivery rose to around $13.30 per million British thermal units (mmBtu), from around $12.80 per mmBtu last week, sources said.
Prices have rebounded in recent weeks after dropping close to 50 percent since February to as low as $10.50 per mmBtu.
Exxon Mobil's Papua New Guinea LNG export plant sold several cargoes at the end of last week, the details of which only began to emerge on Monday, while Russia's Sakhalin project is also offering some supply.
Exxon awarded a cargo to Taiwan's CPC, Japanese buyers Chubu Electric and Tokyo Power, with another two cargoes going to trading companies, including Britain's BG Group, various traders said. It was not possible to confirm the information.
The cargoes are loading in early October.
Sakhalin is offering two cargoes via a tender that closed earlier this week.
Argentina's state-controlled YPF is evaluating the scale of national demand for liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports in 2015 and, with ample stocks at hand, does not expect to issue a tender soon, a company official told Reuters.
"We are already covered for the next six months at least, and so we are not in a rush to launch any kind of tender for next year," the Buenos Aires-based official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters on Monday.
Over the past month, LNG traders have been expecting Argentina to tap the market for supplies for 2015 and even 2016 as well as possibly the fourth-quarter of this year, hoping that such a deal would cement a nascent recovery in spot prices for the fuel.
Despite YPF denials, some traders still expected a tender from Argentina in the next few weeks covering unmet demand for 2015 and possibly for the October-December period, with a second tender expected before December to partially cover 2016 demand.
Some questioned the scale of the rebound, saying that with plentiful inventories some buyers could delay purchases for winter requirements.
In a sign of high stocks and weak demand, Korea Gas Corp , the world's biggest corporate buyer of LNG, has approached long-term suppliers to defer up to 10 autumn cargoes to winter.
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