China has suspended all imports of liquefied pure fuel (LNG) from the USA for over ten weeks, successfully chopping off commerce within the sector as new tariffs make American fuel unviable within the Chinese language market.In accordance with Monetary Occasions delivery information, the final recorded LNG cargo from the US—a 69,000-tonne tanker from Corpus Christi, Texas—arrived in China’s Fujian province on 6 February. A second cargo certain for China was diverted to Bangladesh after failing to dock earlier than a 15% tariff got here into impact on 10 February. That responsibility has since been raised to 49%, successfully pricing US LNG out of China.“There can be long-term penalties,” mentioned Anne-Sophie Corbeau of Columbia College’s Centre on International Power Coverage. “I don’t suppose Chinese language LNG importers will ever contract any new US LNG.”The present freeze mirrors an analogous halt throughout US President Donald Trump’s first time period, which lasted over a yr. Analysts warn the renewed stoppage may affect the viability of huge LNG infrastructure initiatives within the US and Mexico, notably these counting on Chinese language funding and long-term contracts.The commerce rift has additional pushed China to pivot towards Russian vitality sources. “I do know for certain that there are loads of consumers. So many consumers are asking the embassy to assist set up contacts with Russian suppliers,” mentioned Zhang Hanhui, China’s ambassador to Russia.Russia has now grow to be China’s third-largest LNG provider after Australia and Qatar. Talks are ongoing over the Energy of Siberia 2 pipeline, which might strengthen this vitality alliance.Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Chinese language importers started reselling US LNG cargoes to Europe, the place costs had been extra engaging. US LNG accounted for simply 6% of China’s LNG imports in 2024, down from 11% in 2021.Gillian Boccara, analyst at Kpler, mentioned the short-term outlook for renewed LNG commerce is bleak. “The final time this occurred, there was an entire hiatus till the Chinese language authorities granted waivers to corporations, however that was at a time when fuel demand was booming. Now we’re taking a look at decrease financial development, and we predict the Chinese language can face up to the lack of these cargoes for fairly a very long time.”Richard Bronze at Power Facets expects international commerce flows to be reshuffled because of this. “With tariffs rising to the extent the place they’re an efficient embargo, we are going to see a reshuffling of commerce flows,” he mentioned. “We additionally count on Asia demand to fall by 5–10 million tonnes as a complete. That ought to carry fuel costs down a bit in Europe.”
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