| 摘要 | 1. Research Purpose
Until as late as the early 2000's, the interplay among the three regional LNG markets of Asia-Pacific, Europe, and North America had been largely limited due to high transportation costs and rigidities in supply contracts. As such, the pricing mechanism and trading system peculiar to each regional market had been formed independently of each other. Recently, however, increased flexibilities in contractual terms and reduction in transportation costs have led to a surge in spot trades, and emergence of arbitrage deals utilizing the price differentials between the North American and European spot markets. With the increases in spot and arbitrage deals, the clear boundaries among the regional markets are expected to become blurred in the future.
With the demands for spot cargoes are high in all three regional markets, the price differentials among the three markets will influence the inflow of spot cargoes to each market due to the feature of spot cargoes being directed to the market that offers the highest price. Moreover, as the supply situation in Asia-Pacific region is expected to remain tight for the next several years, diversion of LNG volumes designated to North America and Europe to Asia-Pacific may be necessary, and the price will have to exceed those of the Atlantic markets for the diversion to occur. This means that import prices to Asia-Pacific market will be directly and indirectly related to those of Atlantic markets. As such, understanding of the capacity to absorb LNG volumes and pricing mechanisms in the North American and European markets and the strategies of LNG suppliers is critical in assessing the necessary conditions that will induce diversion. In this respect, this study examines the characteristics of the North American and European markets and factors affecting price formation in these markets. Also, it analyzes the strategies of LNG suppliers and evaluates the conditions of LNG diversion to Asia-Pacific market.
2. Summary
The supply situation in Asia-Pacific market is expected to remain tight for the near future, and the world LNG market has recently been reversed to a 'seller's market' after a brief period of a 'buyer's market'. The cost of liquefaction project has rapidly escalated and the prices of recent LNG supply contracts with Asian buyers have risen to a level close to oil parity.
As the LNG supply sources and consuming markets are diversified and the US and UK gas markets are expanding LNG imports, arbitrage and spot trading are becoming active. The existence of liquid gas spot markets provides suppliers not only a basis to earn a certain level of returns even without binding supply contracts, but also flexibility to divert LNG volumes depending on returns. As such, LNG suppliers are actively pursuing to enhance their accessibility to liquid markets and adapting their sales strategies accordingly, for example, by securing LNG terminal capacity, setting aside some volumes for spot trading, and explicitly allowing for the possibility of destination change in supply contracts.
With these changes, the paradigm of LNG project development and the relationship between suppliers and buyers are also evolving. The vertically separated risk-sharing between the supplier and buyer in the traditional form of LNG project development is being changed to a form of vertically integrated risk-taking by the supplier. Also, a new pattern of marketing arrangement called 'self-contracting' has appeared whereby a partner company of a liquefaction project becoming a buyer by concluding a SPA with its own marketing affiliate. Some suppliers are taking on a 'portfolio approach' by which LNG volumes are gathered from several projects and sold as ��branded LNG�� in several different markets, in contrast to the typical one-to-one engagement between a LNG project and a buyer by an SPA.
Since Asian LNG market does not have spot markets unlike Atlantic markets and lacks transparent signals for gas values, the price of each spot cargo needs to be negotiated for which the process can be arbitrary, and the outcome is more up to the degree of urgency in securing volume than reflecting the market value. Consequently, Asia buyers may find themselves in disadvantageous position and have to pay higher premium for spot or diverted cargoes than their Atlantic counterparts. For instance, the spot cargo prices paid by Asian buyers during the early 2006 confirm exorbitant premiums of $4~15/MMBtu on top of the higher values the two representative spot gas prices, the NBP and Henry Hub prices.
3. Policy Suggestions
As the LNG market expands and the supply sources and consuming markets are diversified, the influential status of traditional LNG buyers in Korea and Japan have been weakened and, on the other hand, the suppliers are placing an emphasis on securing a dominant footing in liquid Atlantic markets. Under such array of supply positioning, and especially when the prospect of LNG supply in Asia-Pacific is seen to be tight at least for some time in the future, Asian buyers may need to pay higher premiums for LNG supply than Atlantic buyers who display more elastic demand for LNG.
While payment of high premiums to compete for LNG volume from time to time may be inevitable when demands for spot cargoes are strong, the disadvantageous position as a buyer and inefficient LNG imports having to pay exorbitant premiums can be improved by enhancing the price responsiveness of LNG imports and forming a transparent gas value of domestic market. In order to improve the efficiency of LNG imports, some policy directions are suggested. First, as the domestic pricing method of applying an average of import costs can induce inefficient imports with prices exceeding the marginal willingness to pay, a pricing system that can lead to an efficient import decision based on marginal willingness to pay need to be developed. Second, by improving demand responsiveness with measures such as developing interruptible demands, gas consumption need to be efficiently reallocated. Third, by expanding storage capacity, the need and likelihood of having to import expensive spot cargoes should be reduced. Lastly, through gas industry reform, rigid market operation should be improved, and an efficient and transparent price signal should be provided to support efficient working of the gas market. |
