China slips open door for US LNG

Bloomberg

China last month imported two tankers of US liquefied natural gas, nudging open a doorway that had been closed shut for a month at a time when America is rapidly expanding its ability to export the heating fuel.
The three operating US terminals soaked up more than 5.1 billion cubic feet of natural gas from American shale basins, the most ever. With two more US terminals slated to open in the first quarter of 2019, China’s re-emergence as a customer as wintry weather descends offers a much-needed outlet for exports.
“This is important because priced US natural gas with the tariff is still economical compared to other sources,” said Het Shah, founder of Analytix.AI, an energy market data analytics company in Calgary. “These tankers probably left the US gulf coast in late October.”
While the imports offer short-term hope, Chinese companies are still unlikely to cement long-term deals for more LNG, hindering future projects, without Beijing and Washington resolving their differences over a festering trade war that’s spurred tit-for-tat tariffs in a wide variety of sectors.
The world’s second largest economy imported a record 5.99 million tonnes of LNG in November even as its reliance on American LNG fell. US
imports reached 138,892 tonnes, according to data from China’s General Administration of Customs. That equates to about 6.3 billion cubic feet of gas, or two tankers worth, Shah said.