OREANDA-NEWS. December 19, 2016. Spain's Gas Natural Fenosa may have loaded its first US LNG cargo under long-term contractual prices.

The La Mancha Knutsen LNG vessel, which is controlled by Gas Natural, yesterday left Louisiana's Sabine Pass LNG terminal with a cargo. The ship, which has capacity of 176,300m?, equivalent to 3.6 Bcf (102mn m?) of gas, has not listed its destination.

Gas Natural has a 20-year deal for up to 3.5mn t/yr of LNG, equivalent to about 483mn cf/d of gas, from Sabine Pass when the second liquefaction train at the facility starts long-term operations in September 2017. But under a pre-commercial contract Gas Natural can buy up to 2mn t/yr as soon as train 2 produces under correct specifications. That occurred in mid-September, and the La Mancha Knutsen is the first ship controlled by the Spanish firm that has arrived at Sabine Pass since then.

Under both deals, Gas Natural would pay Cheniere a liquefaction fee of \\$2.49/mmBtu plus 115pc of the final Nymex Henry Hub prompt-month settlement for the month in which a cargo loading is scheduled.

If the cargo on the La Mancha Knusten was bought under those terms, Gas Natural would have paid a free-on-board price of \\$6.72/mmBtu, based on the final December Nymex price of \\$3.232/mmBtu.

Another Gas Natural-controlled vessel, the 156,000m? Seishu Maru, is scheduled to arrive at Sabine Pass on 22 December.

Gas Natural likely loaded its first Sabine Pass cargo on 4 September on the 173,000m? Ribera del Duero Knutsen vessel that it controls. It likely bought the cargo on a spot basis, as the US Department of Energy reported a free-on-board price of \\$4.73/mmBtu for that cargo. Gas Natural in September would have paid a significantly higher price of \\$5.77/mmBtu under pre-commercial terms.

Shell likely will soon load two cargoes from Sabine Pass. The 171,700m? Shell-controlled LNG Abalamabie docked today at Sabine Pass, while the 174,000m? Maran Gas Achilles, also controlled by Shell, was scheduled to arrive at the terminal today.

Shell has a 20-yer deal to buy up to 3.5mn t/yr from Sabine Pass at a liquefaction fee of \\$2.25/mmBtu plus 115pc of the Nymex price. It has other contracts for additional volumes of up to 2mn t/yr when trains 2-4 at Sabine Pass start long-term service, at liquefaction fees of \\$3/mmBtu plus 115pc of the Nymex price.

Gas intake at Sabine Pass dropped to an average of 1.2 Bcf/d in the week ended today, down by 13pc from the previous week's average of 1.38 Bcf/d.