European LNG Buyers Forced High After Summer of Delayed Purchases
Buyers that delayed spot LNG purchases through summer 2026 now face elevated entry prices and the reversal risk that caught European gas companies in winter 2022.
ICE Endex TTF front-month gas settled at €73.27/MWh on Monday (2026-09-21), down nearly 8% on the session, while JKM, the Asian spot benchmark, was priced at $25.99/MMBtu in Tuesday's (2026-09-22) trade — yet European buyers who spent the summer waiting for a deeper retreat are out of time, europesays.com reported on Saturday (2026-09-19). Having delayed purchases until it became clear prices were not falling further, they now face buying at current levels and absorbing the downside risk if spot markets correct.6
The situation echoes the winter of 2022, when European gas companies deferred purchases through a rising market and then scrambled to cover near the top. That episode ended with a sharp reversal. The Iran conflict that disrupted global gas supply in the week of Monday (2026-03-02) gave this cycle its specific character, but the buyer behaviour follows a pattern the market has seen before.6,3
Before the conflict, Europe had been the dominant buyer in the spot LNG market, pulling most available cargoes while Asian demand ran slack. The Iran shock reversed that balance in days. Qatar's largest LNG export facility shut down and shipping through the Strait of Hormuz halted, removing supply simultaneously. Spot LNG prices into north-east Asia reached $25.40/MMBtu, their highest since 2023, according to traders cited in reports from Wednesday (2026-03-04).4,3
Prices accelerated through spring. JKM hit $56.326/MMBtu on Wednesday (2026-05-13), the highest since S&P Global Platts launched the benchmark in 2009, after rising $16.655/MMBtu in a single session, LNG Prime reported. European buyers watching from the sidelines found the entry point they had been waiting for kept moving higher.1
The retreat from that peak has been steep but has not reached the levels buyers anticipated. Monday's (2026-09-21) TTF settlement and Tuesday's (2026-09-22) JKM level both reflect benchmarks still well above where European buyers felt comfortable re-entering the market.6
Record U.S. supply has not broken that floor. American LNG exports totalled more than 73 million tonnes between January and July 2026, a 23% increase from the same period in 2025, Reuters reported on August 24 (2026-08-24). The additional Atlantic Basin supply was absorbed without significantly undermining spot benchmarks.5
Chinese demand helped absorb that supply. Bloomberg estimates, cited by Morgan Stanley in a note from June 9 (2026-06-09), put China's 30-day average for LNG deliveries at 178,000 tonnes per day, the highest since early February 2026. Asian demand did not provide the softness European buyers had counted on.2
Morgan Stanley, in the same June (2026-06-09) note, forecast JKM at $25/MMBtu through the third and fourth quarters of 2026, with more than 30% upside to the then-prevailing forward curve. With JKM trading near that level in Tuesday's (2026-09-22) session, the bank's forecast has effectively played out, leaving limited headroom in its original framing.2
Contrarian signals remain active. JKM carries a bearish positioning signal driven by supply factors, and TTF front-month and NBP day-ahead both show finance-driven bearish pressure. Those positions suggest some participants expect European restocking buying to exhaust itself quickly, removing the demand that has kept benchmarks elevated since the March disruption.6
Buyers caught late in 2022 sold into a sharp reversal through 2023. If European storage fills ahead of schedule this autumn, that sequence could repeat — with JKM and TTF returning the gains held since March, and buyers who covered at current levels bearing the loss.6,4