Chubu: No Need to Buy LNG on Spot Market this Winter

Japanese utility Chubu Electric Power Co has enough liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply to postpone tapping the spot market for the entire winter, its head of trading said on Wednesday.

"We have no demand for spot LNG at this moment," Chubu's Hiroki Sato said. "Maybe next year we will be in the short position but as for this coming winter we have enough volume."

His comments drive home that demand from the world's top importing country is weak and stocks are high.

Speaking on the sidelines of the CWC World LNG Summit in Paris, Sato said that although Chubu, the world's third-largest LNG importer, had no need to purchase on the spot market, it was not deferring any deliveries from long-term suppliers.

Earlier on Wednesday a government official said Japan's LNG imports will drop off "a little" in 2015 as nuclear power plants resume operations, the first decline since the Fukushima crisis in 2011.

Adding pressure to the market, meteorologists say that much of the northern Asian hemisphere, including Japan, is expected to have mostly average to above average temperatures in the three months through to January.

Chubu imported around 14 million tonnes of Japan's total 88 million tonnes of LNG imports in 2013.

(Reporting by Sarah McFarlane; editing by Susan Thomas)