SINGAPORE: A spot tender by Pakistan LNG to buy 10 liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargoes for delivery in the fourth quarter received strong interest from various companies including Japanese and Chinese, according to a company document.

Commodity trader Gunvor submitted the lowest bids for six cargo delivery slots out of the 10 cargoes, a document on the Pakistani company’s website showed on Friday.

DXT Commodities, Vitol, a unit of PetroChina and Socar Trading submitted the lowest bids for the remaining four delivery slots.

The prices offered ranged from 8.3 per cent of Brent crude oil prices for a late October cargo, submitted by Vitol, to 10.9pc of Brent for a late December cargo, submitted by Gunvor.

JERA Global Markets, a unit of the world’s biggest LNG buyer JERA Co and PetroChina International (Singapore), a part of China’s top oil and gas company PetroChina Co Ltd, were among nine companies that have technically qualified to supply the LNG, according to the document.

Lowest offers come from Gunvor, Vitol

JERA and PetroChina have traditionally been big buyers of LNG but have become more active in trading of the super-chilled fuel lately as new long-term contracts become more flexible and as buyers take on more portfolio positions as they try to optimise their trading to lower costs.

This is the first time JERA is participating in Pakistan LNG’s buy tender process, two industry sources said.

This is the third time this year PetroChina has technically qualified in Pakistan LNG’s tender process, according to documents reviewed by Reuters.

PetroChina is one of the four companies vying to supply 240 cargoes of LNG to Pakistan through a 10-year term tender, which is yet to be awarded.

The company had also offered to sell into a spot tender by Pakistan LNG in June for five cargoes for delivery over July to September, but did not win that contract.

Prior to PetroChina’s offer, the last time a Chinese company had qualified to sell LNG to Pakistan through tender was in early 2017 when China National Offshore Oil Corp offered to sell into a five-year term tender.

JERA declined to comment, while PetroChina did not respond to Reuters’ email requesting for a comment.

Vitol Bahrain, BB Energy (Asia), Gunvor Singapore, SOCAR Trading, Trafigura, DXT Commodities and Eni have also qualified for Pakistan LNG’s latest tender to buy 10 cargoes for delivery over October to December, according to the document.

A total of 45 bids were received, according to the document posted on Pakistan LNG’s website.

The company will open the commercial and financial proposals of the qualified companies later on Friday, the document stated.

Published in Dawn, September 7th, 2019