BPMIGAS sees 20 excess LNG cargoes next year

Indonesia will have four LNG cargoes surplus this year and another 20 cargoes for next year as supply commitment to Japanese customers would drop, BPMIGAS Chairman R. Priyono said on Thursday.

Priyono said that Bontang LNG would have surplus cargoes next year as contracts with a group of Japanese buyers known as ?Western Buyers? will expire and the extension would be significantly below the original volume.

?Excess cargoes in 2011 would be even higher than 20 if domestic buyers such as Pertamina and (state gas distribution firm) PGN could not complete development of their LNG receiving terminals in 2011,? he said.

BPMIGAS Deputy Chairman Budi Indianto said recently that the cargoes may be offered to overseas customers if domestic buyers could not absorb the excess cargoes. He did not give detail.

An industry source said that BPMIGAS has started offering the cargoes to Japanese and Korean buyers. The source, however, said that it would be hard to offer 20 spot cargoes next year as the LNG spot market is in bearish trend. ?A number of cargoes are entering spot market next year, which would press the price down,? the source said. (godang)