Natgas on tanker to Mexico unlikely to reach California -analysts

Oct (HKSE: 3366-OL.HK - news) 4 (Reuters) - The first liquefied natural gas import to a major facility in northwest Mexico since June is unlikely to flow to Southern California to ease possible winter shortages despite calls to do so by several energy consumers, analysts said on Tuesday.

The shipment from Indonesia is expected to reach the Costa Azul LNG import facility in a few days, Thomson Reuters (Dusseldorf: TOC.DU - news) shipping data showed. This revived questions about whether Southern California Gas Co, or SoCalGas, as the primary gas provider for the region is known, would import the fuel.

Supplies could run low this winter due to the ongoing outage of SoCalGas' Aliso Canyon storage facility in Los Angeles following a massive leak from October 2015 to February 2016.

SoCalGas, a unit of Sempra Energy (Frankfurt: 915266 - news) , has indicated interest in importing gas from Costa Azul, but said regulations could limit purchases from affiliated companies, according to state agencies' winter action plan. Sempra also owns the company that operates Costa Azul and another that has a contract to move gas through the facility.

Refineries, power plants and other big energy consumers want to be assured of adequate supplies. But some analysts said it made no sense to import expensive LNG into southern California when enough low cost fuel was already available.

"Southern California has access to lots of lower cost gas from other parts of the United States and Canada," said Rick Margolin, senior analyst, natural gas, at energy data provider Genscape.

The Asian spot LNG (LNG-AS) price, a global benchmark, was $6.10 per million British thermal units on Friday. That compared with $2.70 per mmBtu price at the Southern California Border (W-SOBOR-IDX).

Margolin said the tanker, the LNGC Tangguh Palung, was likely only delivering gas to Costa Azul to keep equipment cold so the facility could remain in operation.

This would be the third vessel to drop off gas from Indonesia this year after tankers docked there in June and February, according to Reuters data.

Sempra spokeswoman Paty Ortega Mitchell declined to discuss ships or cargo activity at the terminal, noting its capacity was fully contracted for 20 years to units of Sempra, Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Gazprom PAO.

Officials at Shell (LSE: RDSB.L - news) and Gazprom were not immediately available for comment.

Costa Azul entered service in 2008 to supply southern California and power plants in Mexico's Baja California state. It can regasify about one billion cubic feet per day.

(Reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by Richard Chang)