Dalian LNG is located at the tip of Liaodong Peninsula, with Korea Peninsula to its east and Bohai Bay and coastal Chinese cities including Tianjin to its west. The terminal has applied to set up bonded tanks to re-export LNG to Japan and South Korea in an attempt to boost terminal usage and utilise its LNG reloading capacity.
LNG transit through the terminal has fallen in 2022 as a result of Covid-19 outbreaks in Dalian, increased Russian pipeline receipts and regional grid pressure, in addition to high global gas prices, according to the terminal.
A total of 845,000 tonnes of import capacity has been freed up at the terminal between June and December 2022, as is shown in the terminal availability schedule published by PipeChina in May when compared with a previous schedule published in April. There were no further availability changes in June’s published schedule.
The import capacity includes 260,000 tonnes of capacity freed up for December, which is typically the beginning of the peak winter receipt season for terminals in north China — the Dalian terminal received 421,000t in December 2021, ship tracking data from Vortexa shows.
The terminal has received 698,000 tonnes of LNG in 2022, down from 1.02mn tonnes in the same period in 2021 and a three-year average of 1.3mn t, according to Vortexa.
Chinese LNG imports have been lower on the year since January as Covid-19 restrictions have weighed on downstream demand, cutting import demand for later in the year.
Other LNG terminals in the region along the Bohai coast include PipeChina’s 6mn t/yr Tianjin terminal and Sinopec’s 10.8mn t/yr Tianjin terminal, as well as Sinopec’s planned 6mn t/yr Longkou terminal in Yantai, Shandong. PipeChina’s Tianjin terminal has 260,000t of import capacity freed up in July, according to the June schedule.
PipeChina’s Beihai terminal also has more available capacity from July to October in the latest schedule, and all PipeChina’s LNG terminals showed more available LNG import capacity in the May schedule than in April, except the 3mn t/yr Hainan terminal.
LNG receipts at both operational terminals in Tianjin have been significantly lower on the year, according to Vortexa — PipeChina has received 698,000t in 2022, down from 2.65mn tonnes, and Sinopec has received 2.6mn tonnes, down from 3.56mn tonnes a year earlier.
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