October 01, 2025 [Upstream]- Poland’s Orlen Group has delivered its first liquefied natural gas cargo to Japan as the company seeks to widen its global gas trading operations.

In a statement on Tuesday, Orlen said it completed its first delivery of 100 million cubic metres of natural gas, equivalent to about 72,000 tonnes, to Japan’s utility Osaka Gas.

The delivery to the Osaka Gas-operated LNG terminal at Sakai is being carried out by the Orlen-owned LNG carrier Ignacy Jan Paderewski, the newest addition to the company’s fleet of six carriers.

Ignacy Jan Paderewski entered service in Asia in the first half of 2025 and returned to the region just a few months later with LNG from the US, Orlen said.

“Working with reliable partners such as Osaka Gas allows us to build strong and effective relationships in the global LNG market,” said Orlen vice president Robert Soszynski

Orlen has been steadily building its LNG capabilities for several years, investing in port infrastructure, LNG carriers, and trading offices in key global locations, the company said.

It has long-term capacity bookings at two existing LNG import terminals on the Baltic Sea, one in Swinoujscie in Poland and another one in Klaipeda in Lithuania, which the company said provides flexibility in sending its sourced LNG cargoes to Eastern Europe when spot prices elsewhere are unattractive.

Orlen has also fully booked the 6.1 billion cubic metres per annum capacity at a second LNG terminal in Poland that is under construction and set to be commissioned in 2028.

In early September, amid forecasts of a prolonged heatwave in the country, Japan’s utilities turned to the spot market to source additional gas supply in the period between end of September and beginning of October, according to S&P Global Commodity Insights.

However, most recently, spot LNG demand in Northeast Asia weakened due to ample LNG inventories and sufficient supply in the region, Japan’s Jogmec said in a weekly update report on Monday.