Platts JKM for LNG cargoes delivered in April, the new front month, ended the Asian trading week at $4.65/MMBtu Friday, down 5 cents/MMBtu from Tuesday when the assessment for April JKM started.
Platts JKM for March cargoes finished its assessment period Monday at $5.30/MMBtu.
Offers for April cargoes were heard to be in the high $4s/MMBtu by the end of the week while bids were heard to be in the low to mid-$4s/MMBtu.
Expectations that new supply will emerge with new projects such as Australia's Gorgon coming online also weighed on the market.
Throughout the week trade was thin and market participants waited for the results of buy tenders issued by Thailand's PTT and India's Gail.
Thailand's PTT awarded its tender to buy a cargo delivery March 20-28 at slightly below $5/MMBtu to Qatar Gas, according to market sources.
Another tender which drew attention was India's Gail tender, which was awarded at $4.70/MMBtu for one April delivery cargo and at low $5s/MMBtu for two March cargoes.
Another Indian buyer IOC was reportedly awarded an earlier tender that closed on February 2, though details remained scarce.
Meanwhile, Pakistan State Oil cancel led its LNG buy tender for five DES cargoes while Argentina was expected to issue a tender next month for cargoes to meet its summer demand.
In Russia, Sakhalin Energy again postponed the deadline of a sell tender offering one to two cargoes a month over April 2016-March 2017 to March 1. The tender was issued in the week of January 24, with the initial deadline of February 2 postponed to February 24 after a force majeure was declared at the plant in late January.
Sakhalin Energy also moved up the completion data for its repair work to March 4 from the earlier deadline of March 11, sources said.
In other production news, 4.45 million mt/year Peru LNG export plant has resumed normal operations after a month-long unplanned shutdown, a spokesman with US-based Hunt Oil, the plant's operator, said late Wednesday.
And the 3.7 million mt/year Equatorial Guinea LNG plant in West Africa also restarted normal operations after one month of scheduled maintenance, a source close to the facility said Tuesday.
