据路透社4月5日上海、新加坡报道，中国独立天然气经销商和终端运营商新奥集团一位公司高管表示，公司正在通过新的液化天然气供应协议加强其全球业务，以满足中国的强劲需求，并壮大其年轻的贸易团队。
新奥集团周五表示，该公司签署了一份意向性协议（HOA），由澳大利亚伍德赛德石油公司提供10年的石油供应，这是该私营公司迄今宣布的第四项供应协议。新奥集团于去年10月份在中国建立了首个液化天然气进口设施。
自2017年以来，中国已成为仅次于日本的全球第二大液化天然气买家，过去两年，中国进口的超冷燃料每年增长40%以上。
在周四晚间举行的LNG 2019年会议上，新奥集团首席执行官张叶生对记者表示，随着中国需求的不断增长，该公司将在其新终端准备处理更多天然气，该公司每年将签署数百万吨液化天然气的协议。
张叶生说：“我们的一些全球采购将在中国落地，我们还将进行掉期交易和买卖，以提高我们的国际贸易能力。”
去年10月，新奥集团在中国东部港口舟山的终端接收了30余万吨液化天然气，全部以液体形式出售，并由槽车交付。张叶生说，这是因为一条连接该终端与陆上天然气网络的管道预计今年才会投入运营，并预计这个终端在2019年全年将接收78万吨液化天然气。
交易员表示，这远低于该终端每年300万吨的设计能力，也是上个冬天，新奥集团不得不在一个由大量现货供应的现货市场转售部分长期货物的原因。
新奥集团正在建立它在新加坡的交易部门，今年早些时候，该公司聘请了一名前中海油天然气高管来领导它在新加坡的能源交易和营销部门。
张叶生说，新奥集团已经是澳大利亚石油和天然气生产商桑托斯的股东，公司也正在考虑增加对上游企业的投资，包括在美国和俄罗斯北极地区的投资，但他没有详细说明。
詹晓晶 摘自 路透社
原文如下：
China's ENN expands global trade with new gas purchase deals
China’s independent gas distributor and terminal operator ENN Group is beefing up its global business via new supply deals for liquefied natural gas (LNG) to meet strong Chinese demand and to grow its young trading team, a company executive said.
ENN said on Friday it signed a heads of agreement (HOA) for 10 years of supply from Australia’s Woodside Petroleum, the fourth supply pact the private company has announced so far. ENN started up its first LNG import facility in China in October.
China has since 2017 become the world’s second-largest LNG buyer after Japan, with imports of the super-chilled fuel up more than 40 percent a year over each of the past two years.
Zhang Yesheng, ENN’s chief executive, told reporters at the LNG2019 conference late on Thursday that the company is set to sign for several million more tonnes of LNG a year as its new terminal is ready to handle more gas amid rising Chinese demand.
“Some of our global purchases will land in China ... We’ll also do swaps and buy and sell to boost our international trading capability,” Zhang said.
ENN’s terminal in the East China port of Zhoushan has since its start-up last October received just over 300,000 tonnes of LNG. All was sold in liquid form and delivered by tanker truck.
That’s because a pipeline linking it with the onshore gas grid is only expected to be operational this year, Zhang said.
The terminal is expected to receive a total of 780,000 tonnes for the whole of 2019, Zhang said.
That is far below a design capacity of 3 million tonnes, and the reason ENN had to resell some of its long-term cargoes in an amply-supplied spot market this past winter, traders have said.
ENN is building its Singapore-based trading desk, and early this year it hired a former top gas executive from China National Offshore Oil Corp to head its energy trading and marketing division in the island nation.
ENN, already a stakeholder in Australia’s oil and gas producer Santos, is eyeing more investments in upstream businesses, including in the United States and Russia’s Arctic region, said Zhang. He did not elaborate.
