China Blocks US LNG Imports

Wait. What?
You mean the important and powerful players is doing something completely predictable.

Lotta gas execs might be going “I didn’t vote for this.”
Including Fracking baron Chris Wright, the new Secretary of Energy – whose former company, Liberty Energy, has lost a third of its value this week.

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

“Zero LNG trade between China and the US is likely to continue for the rest of 2025, with a further increase in China’s tariff on US LNG from the previous 15% to 49%, as a counterstrike against Trump’s steepest tariffs,” said Wei Xiong, head of China gas research at Rystad Energy. “In the meantime, we expect to see more reselling by Chinese companies,” she added.

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 last week 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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So if I understand correctly, China companies importing US LNG have found that China’s recently applied retaliatory tariffs make it more attractive to divert LNG cargoes to Europe for lower, or no, tariffs.
Somebody straighten me out if that’s wrong.

Reuters:

 Chinese buyers of LNG are re-selling U.S.-sourced cargoes as tit-for-tat tariffs drive up import costs, and the trend is set to accelerate as new multi-year supply deals kick in this month and domestic demand weakens, traders and analysts say.

Beijing, which imposed 15% tariffs on U.S. LNG imports in early February, on Friday slapped reciprocal levies on all U.S. goods beginning April 10, matching U.S. President Donald Trump’s move to put 34% additional tariffs on Chinese goods.

China, the world’s largest buyer of liquefied natural gas, imported no U.S. LNG during March, data from Kpler and LSEG show. The U.S. accounted for about 5% of China’s LNG last year, according to Chinese customs data.

“Chinese LNG importers will probably shift from thinking: ‘We should attempt to re-sell U.S. LNG into Europe’ to ‘We must re-sell all U.S. LNG’ due to the major difference in tariffs to be paid,” said ICIS analyst Alex Siow.

Already this year, Chinese offtakers of U.S. LNG have resold into Europe about 70% of what they resold in all of 2024, said Laura Page, head of Kpler LNG insight.

A big uptick in resales is expected after U.S. exporter Venture Global’s (VG.N), opens new tab Calcasieu Pass LNG project begins commercial operations, and as the arbitrage to move cargoes from one market to another favours Europe over Asia this summer, she added.