REUTERS, Singapore

Major Asian ​liquefied natural gas (LNG) importers Japan and South Korea ramped up coal-fired power generation in April and into early May, ‌market data showed, as the Iran war disrupted supplies of the super-chilled fuel and boosted prices.

Japan’s gas-fired power supply hit two-year lows in April and South Korea’s dropped to six-month lows, according to data from the Japanese Electricity Market Data Hub and Korea Power Exchange (KPX).

The switch underscores how the conflict is reshaping power ​generation patterns after Iranian retaliation to US-Israeli attacks knocked out 17 percent of LNG export capacity in No. 2 global supplier Qatar.

“The longer ​this war continues, the more switching we will see,” Andre Lambine, a power analyst at S&P Global Energy, told a recent industry event.

In April, coal-fired power supply in Japan surged 11.1 percent, the fastest pace in at least a year, as ​gas-fired power plunged 12.9 percent to 16,447 gigawatt-hours (GWh), statistics from the Japanese Electricity Market Data Hub showed.

Japan and South Korea typically use LNG to ​offset nuclear maintenance shutdowns before demand starts rising in June.

“Japan’s rising coal power output displaced roughly 4 LNG cargoes in April - already about half the annual imports the government expected to avoid by using more coal,” said Fei Xu, senior gas analyst at ICIS.

“This has helped maintain end-April LNG inventories near 5-year averages.”

South ​Korea’s coal-fired power supply rose 39.7 percent annually to 10,733 GWh in April - the sharpest rise since August 2019, while gas-fired power fell 6.4 percent, ​data from KPX showed.

Nuclear supply fell 2.7 percent annually in Japan and 14.6 percent in South Korea in April ‌and continued declining in the first 10 days of May, the data showed.