LNG

The Pacific market has pulled away a little regaining some of the lost ground against the Atlantic recently. With low supply of 2-stroke 174cbm tonnage in the Asia region the BLNG1-174 index rose by $2,300, the largest movement of any route this week and closed at $76,100, while the BLNG1-160 languished moving nothing at all, closing again at $61,000.

News of the Freeport LNG terminal getting all three of its trains back up and running, hinting at a possibility of recovering normal production rates, hasn’t done anything to move the rates. Both the BLNG2-160 and BLNG174 lost $600 to a close of $57,700 and $73,800, respectively. With vessels in supply and only reports of a TFDE 160cbm ship on subs for a late August US-Europe stem there hasn’t been much driving a gain. For Houston-Japan BLNG3 the 174cbm was flat moving zero at $88,400 while the 160cbm fell a few hundred dollars to $73,000.

Period hasn’t been seeing much play as is usual for the summer months, and we published six-months $100,800, one-year $81,500 and the three-year at $84,000, all of which are down from the previous week.

 

LPG

A rather slow week in the MEG with BLPG1 falling $5.166 to $46.667 making the publication the lowest we have seen since back in early February. A slow fixing week, coupled with more vessels than expected, has put pressure on rates and as a result we have seen a firm downward trend. One vessel reported on subs around $45 hasn’t lowered the index there yet but it will not be unexpected if we are to move further down.

For the Atlantic routes there has been a few more fixtures done basis BLPG2 Houston-Flushing than we have seen for many weeks. With around four ships with options going to Flushing there has been more interest but rates haven’t really reacted. For Houston-Chiba BLPG3 there was only a movement of a few cents with a final close at $90.417 and a daily TCE earning equivalent of $27,782. Reports that the Panama Canal Authority will reopen the canal crossings fully within the coming months has alleviated some of the tonne miles but with product long there needs more to move rates higher. BLPG2 Houston-Flushing ended positive, if only by $0.375 cents and a close of $49.75 with a daily TCE earning of $43,827.