In the absence of any notable summer pickup in Asian LNG demand due to continuing low electricity consumption by industry, Asian LNG traders are inventing their own variant on the floating storage plays earlier favored by Western traders: Buying and storing Asia-Pacific supply with the aim of selling it into Europe next winter. Marubeni wouldn't confirm market talk that it has chartered a tanker for loading at Bintulu, Malaysia, in mid-July that would store LNG until winter and possibly unload in the Western Hemisphere. But the surplus Malaysia faces due to lower term sales was exacerbated when China National Offshore Oil Corp.'s (CNOOC) main terminal in Shanghai pushed its planned April start-up back to September at the earliest, due to an accident (WGI Feb.l8,p1). Only one cargo has gone to Shanghai, to a small plant designed for domestic gas.
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