Global seaborne ethane imports averaged roughly 760 kbd in July, of which China discharged about 560 kbd, or 74% of the total. June was higher still at approximately 76%, the strongest monthly share in Vortexa's 2016–2026 dataset. On the selling side, the United States loaded about 99% of global seaborne ethane exports over January–July, at roughly 670 kbd.

The direction of this trade is not new, but the degree has increased sharply. On a rolling 12-month basis, China's share stood at about 70% at end-July, up from roughly 58% a year earlier and about 46% for full-year 2022. Zooming from country level down to terminal level, the trade sits in a handful of assets on each side — the level at which a policy decision, a canal queue or a mechanical failure could disrupt seaborne ethane flows and the 53 active VLECs (very large ethane carriers) that carry them. Ethane is the lightest natural gas liquid, cracked into ethylene — the base feedstock for polyethylene and much of the plastics chain — and US shale output has exceeded what domestic crackers can absorb since the trade began: the first waterborne export cargo left Marcus Hook in 2016, the year Vortexa's dataset opens.

The sell side: two companies, four terminals

Every barrel of US seaborne ethane exported in January–July left one of four terminals. Enterprise Morgan's Point handled roughly 290 kbd, about 43% of the total; Energy Transfer Nederland loaded about 230 kbd (~35%); Enterprise Neches River about 95 kbd (~14%); and Energy Transfer Marcus Hook about 60 kbd (~9%). Split by parent company, Enterprise moved approximately 385 kbd and Energy Transfer about 290 kbd.

Three of the four terminals hold flexible capacity to switch between ethane and LPG, and April showed exactly what that flexibility is for. Facing strong spot demand for LPG cargoes, all three terminals cut ethane at once. Total NGL (natural gas liquids) loadings across the three flex terminals rose only about 2% month-on-month to roughly 1.3 mbd in April — what changed was the mix. Ethane's share of their combined NGL sendout fell from about 32% to about 20% in a single month.

Neches River is the clearest case. The terminal ran pure ethane from August 2025 to March 2026, then brought propane on stream ahead of its original phase-2 expansion schedule, dropping to roughly 17% ethane in April while lifting total throughput from about 100 kbd to about 145 kbd. On its Q2 2026 earnings call, Enterprise indicated that the ~300 kbd of LPG capacity expansion due at its Houston EHT terminal by end-2026 would free flex capacity at Neches River for additional ethane loadings by shifting propane to EHT (Enterprise Products Partners L.P.).

The swing has limits. Firm capacity contracts — mainly the operators' long-term ethane offtake obligations — hold first claim on the flexible space, and what is left depends on which product pays better that month. Once a terminal is running near full utilisation, the ethane share should oscillate within a band rather than move freely.

Outside the United States, seaborne ethane loadings barely exist. Northwest Europe loaded around 3 kbd over the seven months, under 1% of the market, and those barrels move on MGCs and SGCs rather than VLECs.

Imports begin to diversify at the terminal level

On the buy side, two terminals are taking close to half of the world's seaborne ethane. Of China's roughly 485 kbd of arrivals over January–July, Zhejiang Satellite's Lianyungang terminal took about 215 kbd — roughly 45% of Chinese imports and about 32% of all seaborne ethane discharged anywhere in the world. Wanhua's Yantai terminal took a further ~100 kbd, about 15% of global imports. Those two terminals alone account for roughly 47% of the global trade.

Below the top two, the rest of the list has stayed where it was. Mitsubishi Chemical's Da Xie Island terminal, Meifu at Zhapu Jiaxing, and Taixing SP Chemicals each took roughly 40 kbd during the period, broadly flat on a year ago while the top of the list pulled away.

Yantai is where the growth went. Wanhua's terminal ran at about 35 kbd across 19 deliveries in 2025; this year it has already run at roughly 100 kbd across 30 deliveries by July. That is the propane-to-ethane conversion of its No.1 Yantai cracker arriving in the flow data.

The other new entrant matters more than its volume suggests. The Nangang light-hydrocarbon terminal serving the Sinopec Tianjin Ethylene Project (the former Sinopec INEOS JV) was formally opened in December 2025 (Tianjin Government), feeding a 1.2mn t/yr ethane cracker. It has run at roughly 36 kbd across the first seven months of 2026, from barely nothing a year ago.

Feedstock flexibility is the buyer's only real defence, and Satellite has the least of it: its Lianyungang crackers are fully ethane-fed. Wanhua's converted Yantai unit is newer to ethane and keeps more optionality. With risks and opportunities coexisting, ethane-fed crackers — which turn roughly twice as much of each barrel of feedstock into ethylene as naphtha-based units — have also delivered very competitive margins in 2026.

More Chinese capacity is coming alongside an increasing share of the VLEC fleet affiliated with Chinese entities. The 2016–17 cluster was Reliance's Indian shuttle, purpose-built to feed its Jamnagar crackers, after which almost nothing followed for three years. Chinese deliveries began in 2021, and the 12-month average now sits at a dataset high. The orderbook will extend the growth further: at least nine more deliveries are due by end-2026 and 28 during 2027 (Braemar).

Set against that, the first upcoming material non-Chinese destination is INEOS Project ONE at Antwerp, a new European cracker from the group that pioneered US ethane imports into Europe at Rafnes, Norway, from 2016. It is designed to take 1.91mn t/yr (~90 kbd) of ethane and is scheduled to enter operation in H2 2027 (INEOS) — about 14% of today's entire seaborne trade arriving as a single new buyer. Until then, the analysis expects Chinese buyer concentration to keep deepening.

Where the risk sits

Two things can interrupt this trade at short notice: a policy decision in Washington or Beijing, and the Panama Canal. Both have already been tested.

During the 2025 US–China trade war, the episode around ethane lasted under a month, but it still moved the physical market significantly. China's arrivals fell to roughly 125 kbd in July 2025, about 38% of the global total that month, against about 300 kbd at roughly 60% in June. Since then, both parties have commissioned more assets during the détente, making the dependence harder to unwind.

Canal risk has grown with the fleet. The VLEC fleet has more than doubled since January 2024, from 25 hulls to 53, and almost all of that growth sits with Chinese buyers on the US Gulf-to-China route. Among 98 laden US-to-China ethane voyages departing in January–July, roughly 90% transited Panama. That makes the seaborne ethane market more exposed to a single waterway than it has ever been.

The canal has been disrupted twice in the recent four years, while ethane schedules behave more like LNG — term-contracted and more rigid — than other products. The 2023–24 drought forced gas carriers away from the canal, and April 2026 did it again on a smaller scale. Half of the ten US-to-China ethane departures in April took the Cape of Good Hope. With the rerouting compounding April's weaker loadings, Chinese arrivals fell to about 325 kbd in May, the weakest month since October 2025, before recovering to roughly 600 kbd in June.

Looking ahead, the Panama bottleneck remains the focal point for market participants. The August ENSO forecast puts an 81% chance of a very strong El Niño during October–December 2026 and a 97% chance that the event persists into early spring 2027 (NOAA CPC). Gatun Lake sits above 84 feet in early August 2026, far healthier than the 79-foot level of August 2023, but the water level is forecast to fall through autumn (ACP). The VLEC and VLGC fleets face a tighter chokepoint into the peak of the event.

Source: Vortexa