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P A N A M A
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LNG tanker, shown here transiting Panama Canal in January 2021 (Photo: Panama Canal Authority)
Demand for US-produced gas has been weaker in Asian markets, and this has helped accelerate the downturn by discouraging exports from the US Gulf Coast (USGC) region, she said.
Reuters confirmed her remarks, noting that Asian gas demand has been sluggish in recent months due to warmer-than-anticipated tem- peratures. It also pointed out that Asian buyers have been particularly quick to opt out of buy- ing US LNG because of the high transport costs associated with long-haul shipments from the USGC region.
In the meantime, Espino de Marotta com- mented, the shift in Asian gas markets is open- ing up new opportunities for US LNG producers in Europe, where demand is definitely growing stronger.
“Much of [the] LNG from the US Gulf Coast
traditionally going to Asia is being diverted to Europe,” she told Reuters.
The deputy administrator went on to say that LNG tanker transits through the Panama Canal had also dropped in the wake of the fire and explosion that forced the shutdown of the Free- port LNG’s gas liquefaction plant and export terminal on Quintana Island in Texas on June 8. With the plant closed, there are constraints on US LNG export capacity, even though European demand remains strong, she noted.
She also stated that the reduction in LNG tanker transits had been coupled with an increase in transits by some other types of ves- sels, such as LPG tankers and cruise ships. Nev- ertheless, she said, PCA does expect the number of LNG shipments to recover during the next fis- cal year, which begins in October.™
COLOMBIA
Colombian utility says PdVSA has proposed gas deliveries via closed cross-border pipe
GRUPO Energia Bogota (GEB), one of Colom- bia’s largest electricity providers, said last week that it had received a proposal from Venezuela for the resumption of natural gas deliveries via a cross-border pipeline after a hiatus of seven years.
According to Juan Ricardo Ortega, the CEO of GEB, Venezuela’s national oil company (NOC) PdVSA is looking into the possibility of re-openingthepipelineforthepurposeofdeliv- ering gas to north-eastern Colombia. PdVSA is conducting a study of the plan and wants to discuss options for using GEB’s pipeline net- works to distribute gas within Colombia, he told
Bloomberg in an interview last week.
Ortega expressed interest in PdVSA’s scheme, saying that such an arrangement might be attractive under the right conditions. “As trans- porters we have the infrastructure that could bring that gas to the market and we’re more than interested for that to happen,” he said to the news agency. “There are many activities that could transition to gas in Colombia if it had the
reliabilityandtherightprice.”
The CEO didn’t say what terms the Venezue-
lan company had proposed for supplying gas via the 224-km link, which is also known as the Trans-Caribbean/Antonio Ricaurte pipeline.
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