China Halts US LNG Imports in Longest Run Since Last Trade War

(Bloomberg) -- China hasn’t imported liquefied natural gas from the US for 60 days, the longest gap in five years, as worsening relations between Beijing and Washington lead the nation’s buyers to divert shipments.

No US shipments are currently heading to China, according Kpler, an analytics firm that tracks ship data.

During President Donald Trump’s first trade war, China didn’t take a shipment from the US for about 400 days through April 2020, according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg. 

The current geopolitical conflict is beginning to decouple the world’s biggest LNG seller and buyer. Beijing slapped a 15% tariff on US LNG shipments from Feb. 10 in retaliation to American levies, which was further exacerbated on Friday by another set of Chinese levies on all imports from the US.

Chinese LNG buyers receive US shipments under binding long-term contracts. The past mild winter and robust inventories mean that China isn’t in any dire need of LNG, giving the country’s traders more flexibility to resell US supply to rivals in Europe and Asia. 

The move has been a relief for Europe, which needed more LNG to refill inventories and replace the loss of Russian pipeline gas deliveries.

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