Tuesday, 31 August 2010
The LNG industry is being buffeted by forces in other energy markets that could determine whether proposed projects are built and how LNG sales are priced, an industry observer said late Monday at an LNG conference in Perth, Australia In the short term, prospects for the Asia-Pacific market appear bullish, Brian Johnson of Pricewaterhouse Coopers Australia said in a talk at the 5th Annual LNG World conference.Annual capex for energy development in the Asia-Pacific region, he said, "is expected to grow strongly, fueled by giant LNG projects competing to supply growing Asian energy requirements."Gas and LNG "is where the big investment is going forward," with multiple projects aiming to fill a looming supply gap in regional gas demand in 2013-14, he said.Along with growing energy demand in Asia, LNG also stands to gain from public concern about the environmental impacts of energy use. Concerns about climate change are less of a driver for low-carbon energy sources than a few years ago, Johnson said, but pollution abatement -- reducing SO2, NOx and particulate emissions -- remains an important consideration.But in North America, shale gas development has weakened gas prices, though President Barack Obama's moratorium on deepwater offshore drilling could help gas prices in the medium term, Johnson said. He voiced doubts, though, as to whether shale gas offers an attractive long-run investment."In the US, $4/Mcf [price for gas] isn't sustainable at funding costs [for shale gas] of $3.8/Mcf on average and operating costs of $1.7/Mcf," he told conference attendees. Energy companies are cutting their budgets for developing shale gas, he said, while shifting their focus to extracting shale oil.In global LNG export markets, a significant number of contracts are being underwritten for shorter durations. Many contracts since 2002 run for less than 10 years, Johnson said, "with several recently for one year or less...major Asian buyers are taking smaller volumes of gas for shorter periods."Still, though the number of short-term contracts has grown over the past eight years, he said, most LNG contracts feature longer-term sale agreements.Pricing trends remain murky. Index formulas are not standardized and in Asia pricing is largely indexed to oil, Johnson noted. Further, large disparities can be seen in global markets for conventional fuels."European and Asian gas markets are diverging from the Americas in their forward price outlook based on the fundamentals of their respective markets," he said. "Crude oil and gas prices are beginning to diverge in the Americas, while in Europe and Asia the ratio of crude oil prices to gas has decreased."Johnson said he saw several market developments that could determine how pricing indices are fashioned in the future, including greater price-averaging periods to reduce pricing volatility and price moderation produced by eliminating the so-called S-Curve from formulas."The degree of support for transparency in global LNG pricing through a standardized index is mixed," he said. "Support will grow with increasing flexibility in the market, and additional facilities and market participants."
Source: Platts
Tuesday 31 August 2010
Congestion at Indonesian ports worsen
Tuesday, 31 August 2010
Congestion at three international seaports in Indonesia have become worse following a surge in goods shipment ahead of Idul Fitri 2010 and an increase in import flow, reported Bisnis Indonesia The container capacity has been unable to accommodate surging flow of goods at the ports of Pontianak, Banjarmasin and Belawan."Congestion at the three ports is getting worse," said co-chairperson for container transportation at the Indonesian National Shipowners' Association (INSA) Asmari Herry.According to him, ships at the three ports had to wait for five to seven days to get docking services. In Belawan, the congestion was attributable to damaged equipment and surging flow of imported goods.He explained the frequency of ships serving Banjarmasin port surged significantly since demand for goods shipment jumped by 15 to 20 percent, ahead of Idul Fitri.The same situation also happened in Pontianak. "Damaged equipment and poor piling yard capacity exacerbate the situation, creating high-cost economy." The INSA suggested Pelindo take swift actions by bolstering the piling capacity at the three seaports. "Otherwise, the cost will be higher, affecting goods prices."Last week, at least six container vessels carrying staple goods had been queuing for seven days, waiting for docking services at Pontianak port. However, state port operator Pelindo II early this week said it would relocate empty containers massively.Solikhin, general manager of Pontianak-branch PT Pelindo II, stated the company had to rent one hectare of area located around 500m from the port to accommodate empty containers, which took up more than 50 percent of the total capacity.According to him, the congestion was attributable to an increase in container flow and to project works.On the other hand, the volume of imported containers that have to undergo physical inspections by the local Custom and Excise office at Tanjung Priok Port is still high due to a surge in import activities since the fasting month.
Source: CargonewsAsia
Congestion at three international seaports in Indonesia have become worse following a surge in goods shipment ahead of Idul Fitri 2010 and an increase in import flow, reported Bisnis Indonesia The container capacity has been unable to accommodate surging flow of goods at the ports of Pontianak, Banjarmasin and Belawan."Congestion at the three ports is getting worse," said co-chairperson for container transportation at the Indonesian National Shipowners' Association (INSA) Asmari Herry.According to him, ships at the three ports had to wait for five to seven days to get docking services. In Belawan, the congestion was attributable to damaged equipment and surging flow of imported goods.He explained the frequency of ships serving Banjarmasin port surged significantly since demand for goods shipment jumped by 15 to 20 percent, ahead of Idul Fitri.The same situation also happened in Pontianak. "Damaged equipment and poor piling yard capacity exacerbate the situation, creating high-cost economy." The INSA suggested Pelindo take swift actions by bolstering the piling capacity at the three seaports. "Otherwise, the cost will be higher, affecting goods prices."Last week, at least six container vessels carrying staple goods had been queuing for seven days, waiting for docking services at Pontianak port. However, state port operator Pelindo II early this week said it would relocate empty containers massively.Solikhin, general manager of Pontianak-branch PT Pelindo II, stated the company had to rent one hectare of area located around 500m from the port to accommodate empty containers, which took up more than 50 percent of the total capacity.According to him, the congestion was attributable to an increase in container flow and to project works.On the other hand, the volume of imported containers that have to undergo physical inspections by the local Custom and Excise office at Tanjung Priok Port is still high due to a surge in import activities since the fasting month.
Source: CargonewsAsia
Monday 9 August 2010
Indonesia and Turkey Beat Investors’ Expectations by Outperforming BRICs
Jakarta. Indonesia and Turkey are outpacing the biggest emerging markets by almost any financial measure, even while they may be too small to join the BRICs. Indonesia’s equity index has climbed 21 percent this year and Turkey’s rose 13 percent, both hitting all-time highs on July 29. Credit-market rallies sent yields on the nations’ foreign-currency debt to the lowest levels on record, JPMorgan Chase’s EMBI Global gauges show.
The MSCI BRIC Index of shares in Brazil, Russia, India and China is still 42 percent below its peak after losing 1.2 percent this year. Less than two years after the global financial crisis prompted concern Indonesia and Turkey would default, investors are betting lower debt, growing populations and rising profit will spur economic expansions that led Goldman Sachs Group’s Jim O’Neill to promote the BRIC nations in 2001.
While China’s gross domestic product is about 4.2 times Turkey and Indonesia’s combined, they lead the “Next 11” smaller emerging nations with the most potential to affect world growth, O’Neill says. “There’s a paradigm shift in the way both countries have been governed and in terms of economic performance,” said Amer Bisat, a former International Monetary Fund economist who helps oversee more than $1 billion at hedge-fund Traxis Partners in New York. Indonesia and Turkey are “large, extremely systemically important and stable,” he said. “The market is looking at them in a very different light.”
The largest emerging-market stock mutual fund managers, which oversee about $250 billion, boosted their holdings in Indonesia and Turkey to the top “overweight” positions among 21 markets in June on expectations the gains will continue, data compiled by Cambridge, Massachusetts-based EPFR Global and JPMorgan of New York show. The fund managers are increasingly optimistic as profit growth outpaces share prices in both countries, leaving the Jakarta Composite Index and ISE National 100 Index trading at price-earnings ratios about 20 percent below their pre-crisis peaks, according to Bloomberg.
Mark Mobius, who oversees about $34 billion as the Singapore-based chairman of Templeton Asset Management, said last month by e-mail that he planned to increase holdings of stocks in Turkey, where the firm already has more than $1 billion invested. In June, he blogged that Templeton has a “positive take on investment opportunities” in Indonesia, while Antoine van Agtmael, chairman and chief investment officer of Emerging Markets Management in Arlington, Virginia, said on Bloomberg Television that the country was the most attractive among Southeast Asian markets.
The bullish bets are a turnaround from 2008, when investors shunned Indonesia and Turkey as the global economy fell into the worst recession since World War II. The JCI and ISE both sank more than 50 percent, the nations’ currencies weakened at least 15 percent against the dollar and credit-default swap prices suggested a 66 percent chance of default for Indonesia and 52 percent odds for Turkey, Bloomberg data show. Indonesian stocks are becoming more expensive relative to other developing markets. The Jakarta gauge trades at 13.5 times analysts’ estimates for earnings over the next 12 months, near the highest on record relative to the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, which is valued at 11.2 times, according to data compiled by Bloomberg since 2006.
The MSCI BRIC gauge has a ratio of 11. Turkish stock valuations factor in the nation’s political risks, while Indonesian companies have shown they can surpass analysts’ earnings projections, according to Martial Godet, who helps oversee more than $60 billion as the Paris-based head of emerging markets at BNP Paribas Investment Partners. The ISE is valued at 9.6 times analysts’ profit forecasts for the next 12 months, a 14 percent discount to the MSCI emerging index, and companies in the JCI have beat analysts’ profit projections during the past five quarters, data compiled by Bloomberg show. “The momentum is good for both markets,” Godet said. “They are not mainstream investments so people will continue to add money.
In both cases we have populated countries that are growing very well.” President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono oversaw economic expansion of at least 4 percent throughout the global recession. That helped the JCI jump 175 percent from its 2008 low to 3,060.59 on Aug. 6, about 1.2 percent below the all-time closing high of 3,096.82. The stock benchmark closed up 0.7 percent on Monday, while the MSCI Emerging Markets Index climbed 0.4 percent to its highest in more than three months. Indonesia’s $540 billion economy is expected to grow 6 percent this year, fueled in part by rising consumer spending among the nation’s 237 million people as well as rising commodity prices, according to estimates from the Washington-based IMF. The rupiah has surged 41 percent from its 2008 low and is trading at the strongest level versus the dollar since June 2007.
Bloomberg
The MSCI BRIC Index of shares in Brazil, Russia, India and China is still 42 percent below its peak after losing 1.2 percent this year. Less than two years after the global financial crisis prompted concern Indonesia and Turkey would default, investors are betting lower debt, growing populations and rising profit will spur economic expansions that led Goldman Sachs Group’s Jim O’Neill to promote the BRIC nations in 2001.
While China’s gross domestic product is about 4.2 times Turkey and Indonesia’s combined, they lead the “Next 11” smaller emerging nations with the most potential to affect world growth, O’Neill says. “There’s a paradigm shift in the way both countries have been governed and in terms of economic performance,” said Amer Bisat, a former International Monetary Fund economist who helps oversee more than $1 billion at hedge-fund Traxis Partners in New York. Indonesia and Turkey are “large, extremely systemically important and stable,” he said. “The market is looking at them in a very different light.”
The largest emerging-market stock mutual fund managers, which oversee about $250 billion, boosted their holdings in Indonesia and Turkey to the top “overweight” positions among 21 markets in June on expectations the gains will continue, data compiled by Cambridge, Massachusetts-based EPFR Global and JPMorgan of New York show. The fund managers are increasingly optimistic as profit growth outpaces share prices in both countries, leaving the Jakarta Composite Index and ISE National 100 Index trading at price-earnings ratios about 20 percent below their pre-crisis peaks, according to Bloomberg.
Mark Mobius, who oversees about $34 billion as the Singapore-based chairman of Templeton Asset Management, said last month by e-mail that he planned to increase holdings of stocks in Turkey, where the firm already has more than $1 billion invested. In June, he blogged that Templeton has a “positive take on investment opportunities” in Indonesia, while Antoine van Agtmael, chairman and chief investment officer of Emerging Markets Management in Arlington, Virginia, said on Bloomberg Television that the country was the most attractive among Southeast Asian markets.
The bullish bets are a turnaround from 2008, when investors shunned Indonesia and Turkey as the global economy fell into the worst recession since World War II. The JCI and ISE both sank more than 50 percent, the nations’ currencies weakened at least 15 percent against the dollar and credit-default swap prices suggested a 66 percent chance of default for Indonesia and 52 percent odds for Turkey, Bloomberg data show. Indonesian stocks are becoming more expensive relative to other developing markets. The Jakarta gauge trades at 13.5 times analysts’ estimates for earnings over the next 12 months, near the highest on record relative to the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, which is valued at 11.2 times, according to data compiled by Bloomberg since 2006.
The MSCI BRIC gauge has a ratio of 11. Turkish stock valuations factor in the nation’s political risks, while Indonesian companies have shown they can surpass analysts’ earnings projections, according to Martial Godet, who helps oversee more than $60 billion as the Paris-based head of emerging markets at BNP Paribas Investment Partners. The ISE is valued at 9.6 times analysts’ profit forecasts for the next 12 months, a 14 percent discount to the MSCI emerging index, and companies in the JCI have beat analysts’ profit projections during the past five quarters, data compiled by Bloomberg show. “The momentum is good for both markets,” Godet said. “They are not mainstream investments so people will continue to add money.
In both cases we have populated countries that are growing very well.” President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono oversaw economic expansion of at least 4 percent throughout the global recession. That helped the JCI jump 175 percent from its 2008 low to 3,060.59 on Aug. 6, about 1.2 percent below the all-time closing high of 3,096.82. The stock benchmark closed up 0.7 percent on Monday, while the MSCI Emerging Markets Index climbed 0.4 percent to its highest in more than three months. Indonesia’s $540 billion economy is expected to grow 6 percent this year, fueled in part by rising consumer spending among the nation’s 237 million people as well as rising commodity prices, according to estimates from the Washington-based IMF. The rupiah has surged 41 percent from its 2008 low and is trading at the strongest level versus the dollar since June 2007.
Bloomberg
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