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“Spark30S (Atlantic) freight rates paused their upward trend from the past two weeks, decreasing slightly by $1,750 to $39,000 this week,” Spark’s commercial analyst Max Glen-Doepel told LNG Prime on Friday.
Meanwhile, Spark25S (Pacific) rates also showed stability this week, remaining flat at $22,500 per day, he said.
European LNG demand
In Europe, the SparkNWE DES LNG rose compared to last week.
“The SparkNWE DES front-month price for June is assessed at $11.041/MMBtu, with the weekly rise of $1.072/MMBtu largely driven by the week-on-week increase in prompt TTF prices,” Glen-Doepel said.
He said the DES LNG discount to the TTF is assessed at $0.640/MMBtu, “remaining relatively flat versus last week and continuing to indicate strong demand for LNG delivery slots in NW-Europe.”
“The US front-month arb to NE-Asia (via the Cape of Good Hope) remains shut, pricing in at $-0.153/MMBtu and marginally pointing to Europe. The US front-month arb to NE-Asia via Panama continues to point marginally to Asia, assessed at $0.024/MMBtu,” Glen-Doepel said.
Data by Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE) shows that volumes in gas storages in the EU continued to rise and were 41.84 percent full on May 7.
Gas storages were 39.52 percent full on April 30, and 63.83 percent full on May 7, 2024.
JKM
In Asia, JKM, the price for LNG cargoes delivered to Northeast Asia in June 2025 settled at $11.450/MMBtu on Thursday.
Last week, JKM for June settled at 11.260/MMBtu on Friday, May 2.
Front-month JKM remained the same on Monday. It rose to 11.315/MMBtu on Tuesday and 11.410/MMBtu on Wednesday.
State-run Japan Organization for Metals and Energy Security (Jogmec) said in a report earlier this week that JKM for last week was “almost unchanged at low-$11s/MMBtu on May 2 from low-$11s/MMBtu the previous weekend.”
“JKM fell to the mid-$10s/MBtu by mid-week amid subdued demand in Asia and ample inventories, but rose again to the low-$11s on May 2nd as end-users in China and South Korea actively procured spot cargoes on the back of low prices,” Jogmec said.