Equinor Shifts From Passive to Active Stance

摘要

Norway's Equinor,the EU's second-largest gas supplier after Russia's Gazprom,is making shorter-term pricing a bigger part of its sales strategy to reflect the volatility and fast-changing nature of the European gas market,particularly the growing presence of spot LNG.The change,which underscores the greater importance of gas indexation,comes as the wider industry tilts toward gas hub pricing to reflect more liquid European markets.Even advocates of traditional oil indexation like Gazprom are incorporating more hub price linkage,with former Gazprom deputy CEO Alexander Medvedev saying as much as 35% of its gas is priced off gas hubs,with just 20% solely oil-indexed(p3).Right now,sales from Equinor's gas portfolio are linked to a basket of gas indices,based on longer-term forward dated prices.But Equinor's marketing and trading senior vice president,Tor Martin Anfinnsen,told an analyst forum in late February that the plan is to price them mostly on day-ahead and month-ahead contracts,starting in 2020.The portfolio will be weighted roughly two-thirds to the day-ahead contract and the rest to the month-ahead,with the basket of pricing indices rolling off this year.”Any deviation from that will be a consequence of an active view of the market,and that means we could convert some shorter indices to longer indices [if] we believe that is sensible for whatever reason.”Anfinnsen said this would give the company more flexibility to react faster to sudden events such as unpredictable weather.