Is Credit Suisse serious?
Last week Reuters reported that Woodside, Gazprom, Total, Royal Dutch Shell and Yemen Gas Company were all set to lock in higher LNG prices following Petronas' recent deal to triple the price of its Tiga plant LNG exports to South Korea.
Credit Suisse has since come out with views that leading LNG importer Japan will seek to cap how much its utilities will pay.
According to the Australian Financial Review today, the broker claimed this move was being considered by Japan's "powerful" Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and for LNG the price ceiling would be $US13 ($A14.86) per million British thermal units, "or possibly $1 to $2 above that".
This price cap will also reportedly reduce over time, with Credit Suisse suggesting that the Browse floating LNG project and any plans to expand the ExxonMobil-led PNG LNG project could be hit.
Credit Suisse even reportedly claimed that the impact would limit price increases expected at Woodside's Pluto project - with Woodside already counting on price gains from April.
Yet the speculation comes as long-term gas deals are being negotiated ahead of the new Japanese financial year.
Japan has also made considerable noise about seeking a Henry Hub link instead of an oil price link to LNG prices for some time without any outcomes.
South Koreans keen on United Petroleum
Australia's largest independent fuel supplier and retailer United Petroleum is reportedly valued at a little more than $A1 billion after South Korean oil refiner S-Oil Corp was named as the preferred bidder for a key stake.
According to the AFR, Deloitte-advised S-Oil landed a four-week exclusive negotiations period with UP owners Avi Silver and Eddie Hirsch that started yesterday.
Sources claimed that South Korean conglomerate SK Group, Affinity Equity Partners and a European trading house also expressed interest.
S-Oil reportedly has a two-year offtake agreement with UP.
UP's retail presence comprises more than 200 service stations.
The newspaper has run a series of reports over Shell Australia seeking a $3 billion sell-off of its refining and service station assets.
Petrobras platform scare
According to a Reuters report in Portuguese, Petrobras' P-7 platform at the Weevil field in the offshore Campos Basin had a worrying leak of oil, gas and hydrogen sulphide last week, which took 30 minutes to control.
A Brazilian union director reportedly said it was lucky that nobody was hurt especially due to the risk of a gas explosion.
"This could have been much more serious," union official Marcos Breda said, according to an online translation of the Brazilian report.
Breda reportedly said no oil managed to spill into the ocean from the incident on January 21.
The three-decade-old platform is about 120km from the coast.
It had an ocean spill of 164 barrels of oil in a 2001 accident.
