Rates for LNG carriers trading spot and short-term cargoes are coming under fresh pressure, market players said this week.
Shipowners and brokers reported there is very little chartering activity at the moment and what there is tends to be concentrated in the Atlantic region after Japanese LNG demand and Asian gas prices fell away from the end of the second quarter. They pointed to a tender to ship a cargo of Nigerian LNG from mid-October as one of the few pieces of business up for grabs. The job is said to have attracted interest from more shipowners than other similar tenders of late.
Brokers said that at least two modern LNG carriers, the 145,700-cbm Golar Maria (built 2006) and the 138,106-cbm Excel (built 2003), are being marketed as open for long-term charter.
At the start of the week they reported that the 138,000-cbm Excelerate (built 2006) is also showing available for a six-month period.
Golar Maria was recently fixed for 14 days at a heart-stopping daily rate of $185,000 while the Excel netted $152,000 per day on a three-month charter over the summer. Brokers said their owners are unlikely to see repeats of these levels in the foreseeable future.
While the market rate is difficult to read due to the lack of fresh activity, the availability of this type of tonnage is likely to put further downward pressure on levels, they added.
One potentially positive signal for LNG carrier rates, traders reported, is that Japanese utilities are starting to make initial enquiries about winter cargoes.
Brokers said chartering activity is expected to pick up towards the end of this year with the onset of the winter heating demand season for the northern hemisphere but the market could remain subdued in the interim.
