The number of liquefied natural gas tankers bound for Japan dropped for a second week, falling 20 percent in six days, ship-tracking data show.

Twelve LNG tankers are heading to import terminals in Japan, down from 15 a week earlier. Twelve tankers are bound for South Korea, up from 11 last week. The United Arab Emirates is the most popular destination for vessels, with 13 ships heading there to load with the super-cooled fuel.

Two ships are sailing to South American destinations. The Golar Spirit is heading to the new Brazilian import terminal at Pecem. It's due to arrive on July 21 and sailed from Trinidad.

Argentina will take its third cargo of LNG on July 28 at Excelerate Energy LLC's Bahia Blanca GasPort terminal.

Three ships are bound for the U.S., in line with last week. Only one of these is sailing for an import terminal. The other two are heading to Alaska, where there's an LNG production plant that supplies Japan.

The number of ships en route to Spain declined to four from six last week.

Future times of arrival were captured from 121 vessels, 44 percent of the global fleet of 273 LNG carriers in service.

LNG is natural gas that's chilled to minus 161 degrees Celsius (minus 258 Fahrenheit) to aid transportation and storage by ocean-going tankers.

                             July 17                July 11
                         Tankers   Share       Tankers   Share
                         (Number)   (%)        (Number)   (%)


U.A.E.                      13       11           11       9
Japan                       12       10           15      13
South Korea                 12       10           11       9
Qatar                        9        8            5       4
Trinidad                     7        6            6       5
Nigeria                      6        5            6       5
Oman                         6        5            3       3
Egypt                        5        4            7       6
Singapore                    5        4            7       6
Algeria                      4        3            5       4
Australia                    4        3            3       3
Malaysia                     4        3            4       3
Malta                        4        3            0       0
Spain                        4        3            6       5
Suez                         4        3            2       2
Indonesia                    3        3            7       6
U.S.                         3        3            3       3
Caribbean                    2        2            0       0
Unspecified                  2        2            3       3
Argentina                    1        1            1       1
Belgium                      1        1            0       0
Brazil                       1        1            0       0
Canary Islands               1        1            0       0
France                       1        1            2       2
Gibraltar                    1        1            2       2
India                        1        1            0       0
Mexico                       1        1            1       1
Portugal                     1        1            1       1
South China Sea              1        1            0       0
Taiwan                       1        1            2       2
West Africa                  1        1            0       0
Brunei                       0        0            2       2
Norway                       0        0            1       1
Turkey                       0        0            1       1
Western Europe               0        0            1       1
Total                      121                   118