The UK received the fewest number of LNG cargoes in April-September since 2008, when it had just one commissioned LNG import terminal.
The UK's three LNG terminals — 5.6mn t/yr Dragon, 15.6mn t/yr South Hook and 14.8mn t/yr Isle of Grain — together received 24 cargoes in April-September, down from 41 over the same period in 2023 and 104 in 2022. The UK's summer LNG imports were previously below 30 only twice since all three facilities have been on line — in 2018 and 2019 when 26 and 28 LNG deliveries were completed, respectively.
The origin of the UK's LNG was also the least diverse since 2017, coming from just five countries. Dragon received exclusively US cargoes, while South Hook took cargoes from the US and Qatar. Isle of Grain received LNG from the US, Algeria, Norway and Peru.
The UK received LNG from six countries in 2023, 2021 and 2020, and from nine countries in 2018 and 2019. Its most diverse summer of supply was in 2022, when the country received LNG from 10 countries.
South Hook — owned by a joint venture between Qatargas, ExxonMobil and Total — was the only terminal to receive Qatari LNG this summer, while in previous years all three UK terminals had taken Qatari cargoes.
And South Hook received just five Qatari cargoes in April-September, the lowest since the commissioning of all three terminals. This was down from 12 in summer 2023 and 39 in 2022. Qatar had constituted more than half of the UK LNG mix in 2019-20 and was the dominant supply source in 2010-17.
Part of the reason for slower Qatari deliveries to South Hook may have been the effective closure of the Suez Canal route. All five Qatari vessels that delivered to the UK went the longer way around the Cape of Good Hope. The need for a change in route — triggered by Yemen's Houthi militants' attacks on ships — almost doubled the journey time. And no firms hold long-term Qatari contracts that specify UK ports as the exclusive destination point.
Europe's demand for LNG was consistently weak over the summer because of low injection demand and strong Norwegian pipeline supply. Asian demand, in contrast, was strong enough to keep the arbitrage between the Atlantic and Pacific basins mostly open. And the NBP front-month market held below the TTF on all but one day over the summer, which priced out UK terminals relative to those in continental Europe.
The additional buildout of LNG import capacity in northwest Europe since 2022 has significantly reduced the UK's role as an LNG transit country.
In the 2022 and 2023 summers, when more LNG arrived in the UK, exports to continental Europe through the Interconnector and BBL pipelines were much higher.
Interconnector flows to Belgium fell to 21.2mn m³/d in April-September, from 29.2mn m³/d in 2023 and 54.6mn m³/d in 2022. BBL deliveries to the Netherlands were roughly unchanged from a year earlier but fell by around 5mn m³/d from 2022.
The Argus NBP everyday price held below the TTF throughout the past summer, apart from five days in late April and one day in early May.
In addition, British consumption continues to decline. UK demand — excluding storage injections — fell to 98.1mn m³/d in April-September, from 109.5mn m³/d over the same period in 2023, 130.6mn m³/d in 2022 and 142.8mn m³/d in 2021.
The continuing decline in domestic production was mostly offset by higher Norwegian pipeline deliveries. Norwegian flows to the UK through Gassco infrastructure averaged 64.6mn m³/d in April-September, up from 38.8mn m³/d in summer 2023 and 63mn m³/d in 2022.
