As tariff war rages between the United States and its major trading partners, Nigeria is expected to earn N1.09 trillion ($733 million) from 1.36 metric tonnes of liquefied natural gas shipments to Asia on Delivered Ex Ship (DES) basis.
It was gathered that the Nigerian national Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCLtd) has planned to ferry more LNG cargoes on a DES basis, wherein sellers pay all costs to move cargoes to buyers as a tonne of the fuel is $538.71 in China.
It was revealed that gas imports by China is expected to rise to about 200 billion cubic metres (bcm) this year, up about 10 per cent from record 2024 imports of 131.7 million metric tons (181.8 bcm), following its trade tension with the United States.
According to Rystad Energy, steelmaking, ceramics and glass production, there would be more demand growth as they wwere more likely to react to China’s efforts to encourage domestic demand and boost the property market.
Analyst Wei Xiong added that manufacturing, however, could be hit if trade conflict with the U.S. escalates under President Donald Trump, adding that 17.8 gigawatts of gas-fired power capacity was added last year, mostly in southern China.
Also, ICIS analyst, Wang Yuanda said that China will import a record high 79 million to 86 million tonnes of LNG this year. Recall that in January, seven vessels ferried out 426,000 tonnes of liquefied natural gas to various destinations in Europe and Asia.
It was revealed that Spain took delivery of 140,000 metric tonnes from the export as data from Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) explained that LNG Ondo has 65, 000 tonnes; LNG Maran Gas, 8,000 tonnes; LNG Benue, 65,000 tonnes; LNG Abalamabie, 77,000 tonnes; LNG Bonny II,80,000 tonnes; LNG Sokoto, 66,000 tonnes and LNG Lokoja, 65,000 tonnes.
Also, Portugal had planned to increase purchases of natural gas imports from Nigeria in order to end the dwindling supplies from Russia after importing 340,055 tonnes (49,141 gigawatt-hours) of natural gas in 2024 out which Nigeria accounted for 51 per cent or 173, 421 tonnes, about 40 per cent came from the United States and around 4.4 per cent from Russia.
In September, 2024, 1.36 million tonnes of the fuel valued at $936 million was ferried out to Asia and Europe.
Also, between April and August, 2024 was 1.20 million tonnes of gas valued at $894 million (N1.43 trillion). The country’s Environment Minister, Maria da Graca Carvalho noted that Russia accounted for 15 per cent of Portugal’s LNG supply in 2021.
However, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the European Union has implemented targeted sanctions on Russian oil and gas imported through pipelines but it has not prevented the import of LNG transported by ship into Europe.
Carvalho said: “Portugal is now practically independent of Russian gas, but we want to reduce this figure further by importing more gas from Nigeria and the United States.’’
In less than three weeks, three vessels with 211,000 tonnes of gas to Spain for delivery at the Port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife Anchorage,
