* Singapore's LNG port starts commercial ops
* Mexican, Argentine tenders focus attention
* Portugal's Galp offering 6 Nigeria cargoes
LONDON/PERTH, May 10 (Reuters) - Asian prices of liquefiednatural gas steadied at low levels this week due tofeeble demand, while Latin American importers continued amore-than-two-month trend of paying premiums to attractsupplies.
The price of spot LNG in Asia hovered around $14.25 permillion British thermal units (mmBtu) as buyers were wellsupplied and held off from making additional purchases for June.
A slump in LNG demand from top global buyer Japan hasshifted the spotlight from Asia to major Latin Americaneconomies Brazil, Argentina and now Mexico, which are seeking toavert energy shortages by increasing imports.
As for supply, Singapore LNG received its first cargo thisweek as it started commercial operations of its $1.4 billionterminal. The city state has been trying to carve a role foritself as a regional LNG trading hub. The 3.5 mtpa hub willlater be expanded to 9 mtpa.
Sellers awaited the results of two big tenders from LatinAmerica before determining how much fresh supply they couldoffer to Japanese and South Korean buyers.
Mexican state-run firm CFE is due to award tenders to buyabout 30 cargoes over 2013 and 2014, and Argentina's state-runYPF will award tenders for seven cargoes to be delivered thisyear, trade sources said.
In other Latin American deals, the trading arm of Gazprom delivered a cargo sourced from Egypt to Argentina at aprice of $16.25 to $16.50 per mmBtu, Waterborne analysts said.
British oil major BP sold a cargo to Brazil'sstate-run Petrobras for $15.25-$15.50/mmBtu, whileMexico paid about $15.85/mmBtu to trading house Trafigura for acargo delivered in April.
In Europe, Portugal's Galp Energia also recentlyclosed a tender to sell six cargoes, loading from Nigeria'sliquefaction facility at Bonny Island on the Niger Delta.Traders were not able to provide details on the buyer and theterms.
Meanwhile, Norway's Statoil resumed exports of LNGfrom its Snoehvit plant in the Barents Sea last week, adding toglobal supplies.
In Britain, prompt gas prices fell on Friday as low demandand reduced injection into underground storage packed more gasinto pipelines.
And in the United States, natural gas futures were littlechanged early on Friday, with a slight bias to the downside asmild, spring-like weather and after data showed an increase inthe weekly inventory.
BP (BP.)
