This story requires a subscription
This includes a single user license.
Spark30S (Atlantic) freight rates rose $14,000 this week to $35,750 per day, Qasim Afghan, told LNG Prime on Friday.
He said this is the largest week-on-week rise in Atlantic rates since September 2023, and has “largely been driven by the US front-month arb pointing to Asia for the first time in seven months earlier this week.”
Meanwhile, Spark25S (Pacific) rates stayed relatively flat at $22,250 per day, according to Afghan.
European LNG deliveries
In Europe, the SparkNWE DES LNG dropped compared to last week.
“The SparkNWE DES LNG front month price for May dropped by $0.71 to $10.376/MMBtu, whilst the discount to the TTF stayed relatively steady at $0.815/MMBtu, continuing to indicate strong demand for LNG delivery slots in NW-Europe,” Afghan said.
“Despite pointing to Asia earlier this week, the US front-month arb to NE-Asia (via the Cape of Good Hope) has once again closed out, pricing in at -$0.100/MMBtu and marginally pointing to Europe,” he said.
“The US front-month arb to NE-Asia via Panama continues to point to Asia, assessed at $0.025/MMBtu,” Afghan said.
Data by Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE) shows that volumes in gas storages in the EU rose from last week and were 37.73 percent full on April 23.
Gas storages were 35.96 percent full on April 15, and 61.98 percent full on April 23, 2024.
JKM
In Asia, JKM, the price for LNG cargoes delivered to Northeast Asia in June 2025 settled at $11.505/MMBtu on Thursday.
Last week, JKM for June settled at 12.085/MMBtu on Thursday, April 17.
Front-month JKM remained the same on Monday and it dropped to 11.770/MMBtu on Tuesday and 11.660/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 rose to “low-$12s on April 17 (June delivery) from low-11s/MBtu the previous weekend (May delivery).”
“JKM was on an upward trend throughout the week as bearish market sentiment improved as the Trump Administration began reviewing its tariff measures and unplanned outages at several LNG shipping terminals in Asia, including Bintulu,” Jogmec said.