ISLAMABAD: As the international market continued its downward journey, state-run Pakistan LNG Limited (PLL) has received cheaper bids for two cargoes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) for deliveries in April.

The PLL on Friday said Vitol Bahrain offered the lowest bids of 1.0522 per cent and 10.88933pc of Brent Crude Price for April 5-6 and April 19-20 delivery windows, respectively.

This is the lowest bid PLL has secured from the spot market since Sept 22-23, 2020. The LNG prices had since been on a steady increase.

The PLL bid results showed, three companies had bid for April 5-6 cargo with a price range of 11.05pc to 12.18pc of Brent. For the second cargo on April 19-20, the PLL received four bids ranging between 10.8933pc and 12.50pc of Brent. Vitol Bahrain won both bids.

At current Brent price of about $58 per barrel, both cargoes worked out at about $6.3 to $6.4 per million British thermal unit (mmBtu). The bids were invited through open tender on Dec 30, 2020.

Earlier, the PLL had received the lowest bid of 13.62pc of Brent for cargo delivery in second week of March from ENI of Italy under an urgent tendering process. The lowest bid for the 4th week of March also through urgent tender had secured 12.73pc of Brent from Qatar Petroleum.

This indicated that prices were easing out in the spot market as demand dropped over the past couple of weeks.

After many months, the spot prices are now available to Pakistan at lower than long term contract of Qatar Petro­leum at 13.37pc of Brent. All spot cargos usually contain about 140,000 cubic meters of LNG or 3.2 mmBtu.

Published in Dawn, February 6th, 2021