Pakistan LNG Ltd has decided against awarding in a tender three liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargoes due to be delivered by trading house Trafigura and Gunvor between December and January, trade sources said. In a tender seeking four December shipments, Trafigura submitted the lowest bid for the Dec. 1-2 delivery slot, according to a bid evaluation report published by Pakistan LNG.

Gunvor and B.B. Energy submitted the lowest bids to supply the remaining three cargoes for the month. In a similar tender for January shipments, Gunvor submitted the lowest bids to supply one cargo on Jan. 16-17 and another on Jan. 21-22, which will not be awarded. A trade source said Pakistan LNG likely did not favour the price levels. However, the terminal into which the cargoes were to be delivered has faced ongoing delays and infrastructure challenges and this may have played a part in Pakistan LNG''s decision not to award some of the cargoes, traders said.

"There is still a risk of further delays and that would leave too many cargoes needing to be unloaded at the terminal in a short space of time," one trader said, in reference to the December and January delivery quota. Pakistan''s second Floating Storage and Regasification Unit (FSRU), the BW Integrity, was due to start operations early this year but suffered repeated delays.

Traders expected the terminal to begin accepting cargoes from Nov. 15 but a statement by Japanese trading house Mitsui, which on Tuesday bought a 49 percent stake in the FSRU, pushed back that date to between the end of November and the first half of December.

Copyright Reuters, 2017