KACHARAGADLA

What’s needed in the ever changing liquefied natural gas (LNG) market in the Asia-Pacific region is more demand to soak up a supply glut that has been on-going for over a year and will get even worse as the New Year starts and last until at least 2020, perhaps as far out as the mid 2020s. To start with, the supply side of the equation: From a market that had somewhat limited supply in the aftermath of the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan and that country’s increased procurement of the super-cooled fuel to make up for the eventual shut down of all of its 50 nuclear plants, and with prices breaching $20 per million British Thermal units (MMBtu) in the first part of 2014, markets have become seriously over-supplied. This stems from several factors. First, the world’s top two LNG exporters, Japan and South Korea, respectively, have seen a slow down in LNG demand growth amid warmer temperatures during the last couple of winters in the Northern Hemisphere. Both countries