{"id":4817,"date":"2020-02-10T09:57:20","date_gmt":"2020-02-10T09:57:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/euromenaenergy.com\/?p=4817"},"modified":"2020-02-10T09:57:20","modified_gmt":"2020-02-10T09:57:20","slug":"chinas-state-lng-buyers-mull-force-majeure-amid-virus-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/?p=4817","title":{"rendered":"China\u2019s State LNG Buyers Mull Force Majeure Amid Virus Fight"},"content":{"rendered":"

China\u2019s big state-owned liquefied natural gas importers are considering force majeure declarations on contracted cargo deliveries as they grapple with the impact from the novel coronavirus, according to people with knowledge of the situation.<\/p>\n

The fight against the deadly virus is threatening China\u2019s\u00a0economic growth\u00a0and is casting a cloud over energy demand for the top crude importer and second-biggest LNG buyer. The nation\u2019s oil consumption is already estimated to have dropped by\u00a020%, which is expected to cause fuel makers to\u00a0cut back production\u00a0and seek to delay some oil shipments. A decline in gas demand is similarly forcing buyers to consider postponing deliveries to cope with high inventories.<\/p>\n

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The LNG importers, including China National Offshore Oil Corp., are still assessing the impact on consumption and haven\u2019t decided yet whether to make the declarations, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the information isn\u2019t public. Firms declare force majeure when they\u2019re unable to meet contractual obligations for reason beyond their control.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

A drop in China\u2019s gas demand would likely leave little outlet for additional imports as the nation has been grappling with high inventories over the last few months amid milder-than-normal winter temperature. And any disruption or cancellation of cargoes to China would put more pressure on Asian spot LNG prices, which have hit record\u00a0low levels\u00a0amid a global glut of supply.<\/p>\n

CNOOC and\u00a0PetroChina Co.\u00a0have begun drafting the necessary documents to issue the declarations, in case they decide to move ahead, said the people.\u00a0Sinopec Corp.\u00a0is also considering force majeure.<\/p>\n

PetroChina and Sinopec declined to comment. Nobody answered multiple calls to CNOOC.<\/p>\n

China\u00a0said\u00a0last week that it would offer support to companies that sought to declare force majeure on international contracts. The announcement came as provinces accounting for two-thirds of China\u2019s gross domestic product extended the Lunar New Year holiday until at least the second week of February, prolonging the shutdown of factories that produce everything from cellular phones to sneakers.<\/p>\n

The Japan\/Korea Marker, the spot LNG benchmark for Asia, fell to a record low\u00a0$3.512<\/span>\u00a0per million British thermal units on Monday, according to S&P Global Platts.<\/p>\n

\u2014 With assistance by Anna Shiryaevskaya, and Feifei Shen<\/em><\/p>\n

(Updates with JKM price in final paragraph.)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

China\u2019s big state-owned liquefied natural gas importers are considering force majeure declarations on contracted cargo deliveries as they grapple with the impact from the novel coronavirus, according to people with knowledge of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4839,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[46,48,57,68,76,77,82,86,87,90,96,99,103,107,109,111,113,137,139,146,148,160,174,183,184,201,202,209,222,230,232,233,244,246,249,256,262,263,267,277,279,280,285,288],"class_list":["post-4817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oil-gas","tag-aramco","tag-athens","tag-baroudi","tag-carbon","tag-climate","tag-climate-change","tag-co2","tag-cyprus","tag-decarbonising","tag-democracy","tag-doha","tag-eastmed","tag-egypt","tag-embargo","tag-emissions","tag-energy","tag-energy-peace","tag-gas","tag-gazprom","tag-greece","tag-greenenergy","tag-international-maritime-disputes","tag-lebanon","tag-maritime-boundaries-east-mediterranean","tag-maritime-disputes","tag-offshore","tag-oil","tag-opec","tag-pollution","tag-poverty-alleviation","tag-putin","tag-qatar","tag-rosneft","tag-roudi","tag-russia","tag-saudi","tag-solar","tag-solar-power","tag-straddling-hydrocarbons-reserves","tag-total","tag-trump","tag-turkey","tag-unclos","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}