KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 22): Spot rates for  liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker freight rates in the Asia Pacific region rose to new records, on the back of  surging demand for LNG and increased shipments of U.S. gas to Asia.

LNG freight assessor Spark Commodities last week said Pacific spot LNG freight rates jumped above US$300,000 per day to a new record high.

Spark Commodities said the spot price for LNG tankers to deliver fuel in December in the Pacific region jumped to an all-time high of US$316,750 per day, up by 9% compared to the previous week.

It said this beat the previous record for spot LNG rates set last winter when a cold snap in Asia drove LNG prices and freight rates to records.

Those records were beaten in the past few weeks when spot LNG prices in Asia jumped to well above US$30 per metric million British thermal units (MMBtu) last month.

Now LNG freight rates have also exceeded last winter’s all-time highs and are five times higher than in early September.

Meanwhile, the spot LNG freight rate in the Atlantic basin jumped by 5% from the previous weeks’ estimate to US$254,250 per day this week, according to Spark Commodities data.

Rising prices and LNG demand started to push spot LNG freight rates to over US$200,000 per day in October, as traders scrambled to book vessels.

A monthly cash settled LNG freight future based on the Spark25S Pacific 160 Tri-Fuel diesel electric (TFDE) propulsion ships assessment as published by Spark Commodities showed the rate for Spark25S for the Nov 20 - Dec 20 period at US$273,250/ day and at $US223,500/ day for Spark30S, respectively.