“Global LNG freight rates increased marginally this week, with Spark30S (Atlantic) pricing in at $36,500 per day and Spark25S (Pacific) at $35,000 per day,” Spark’s commercial analyst, Max Glen-Doepel, told LNG Prime on Friday.
Last week, Spark30S (Atlantic) rates were at $36,000 per day and Spark25S (Pacific) at $33,250 per day.
European prices rise
In Europe, the SparkNWE DES LNG rose compared to last week.
“The SparkNWE DES LNG front-month price for September increased this week by $0.275 to $10.809/MMBtu, driven mostly by the increase in front-month TTF,” Glen-Doepel said.
He said that the basis to the TTF “remains fairly steady at $0.485/MMBtu.”
Moreover, “the US front-month arb to NE-Asia (via the Cape of Good Hope) widened for the second consecutive week, by $0.036 this week, pricing in at -$0.201/MMBtu and still incentivising US cargoes to deliver to Europe,” Glen-Doepel said.
“Similarly, the US front-month arb to NE-Asia via Panama is close to zero but marginally pointing to Europe, assessed at -$0.004/MMBtu,” he said.
Data by Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE) shows that volumes in gas storages in the EU continued to rise and were 74.76 percent full on August 20.
Gas storages were 72.74 percent full on August 13, 2025, and 90.22 percent full on August 20, 2024.
JKM
In Asia, JKM, the price for LNG cargoes delivered to Northeast Asia in October 2025 settled at $11.440/MMBtu on Thursday.
Last week, JKM for September settled at 11.893/MMBtu on Friday, August 15.
Front-month JKM dropped to 10.930/MMBtu on Monday and 10.915/MMBtu on Tuesday. It rose to $11.110/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 “fell to low-$11s/MMBtu on August 15 from high-$11s/MMBtu the previous weekend.”
“JKM continued to decline throughout the week as demand in Northeast Asia remained sluggish due to high inventories in China while supplies remained ample,” it said.
