LPG Market Feeling Chilled - And Soon Under Pressure

摘要

It started on 10th July, 2003 when Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan told the US Senate Energy Committee "today's tight natural gas markets have been a long time coming and distant futures prices suggest that we are not apt to return to earlier periods of relative abundance and low prices any time soon". He explained that the long-term solution is to increase the nation's capacity to import LNG and, needless to say, the shipping industry rose to the challenge. At about the same time Qatar's new investment project to increase LNG exports from 31mt to 72mt was getting started. But as investors queued to sign up for the 210,000m~3 Q-Max tankers being commissioned for the trade, another interesting sub-plot started to develop - the associated gas market. Natural gas production typically contains about 1.0-2.5 percent of petroleum gas, creating a significant new growth market for LPG tankers.