LNG

Glenfarne, lead developer of the Alaska LNG project, claims that liquefying Alaska’s North Slope gas and shipping it to Asia would be at least 65% cheaper than shipping LNG from the US Gulf Coast. Brushing aside criticism over the project’s high cost, Glenfarne told Reuters that the Alaska LNG project itself entails some $1.4 billion per mtpa in delivery costs.

Seoul has firmly rejected US assertions that South Korea had committed to investing up to $54 billion in the proposed 20 mtipa Alaska LNG project. President Lee Jae-Myung said the government had only agreed to begin "working on" Alaska LNG, with any investment remaining conditional on the project’s commercial viability.

Chinese President Xi Jinping will fly to Washington for a state visit on 24 September in a bid to stabilise a relationship strained by tariffs and technology controls. LNG markets eagerly await whether Xi will agree to remove the 15% tariff on US LNG imports to China, which currently renders such imports uneconomic.

The Alaska LNG project has emerged as South Korea’s likely first U.S. investment under a $200 billion trade deal, with Seoul signalling a possible announcement in late August or early September.

Bullishness abounds for LNG prices and winter 2026/27 contracts at Europe’s benchmark TTF gas trading hub after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose a US toll on shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. For spot prices, the sell-off after the peace memorandum was short-lived.

The Strait of Hormuz, a critical chokepoint for roughly 20% of global LNG supply, will reopen to shipping on Friday, June 19, after the US and Iran formally sign a peace deal to end the war, US President Donald Trump confirmed. Brent crude futures fell 4.1% in early trading on Monday on the news.

China wants to buy more American oil and may lift its 25% tariff on US LNG imports as “energy is the one thing they really need,” President Donald Trump told Fox News. Beijing could unilaterally approve the resumption of US LNG imports, but the country has proven resilient to Qatari supply disruptions in the third month of the Middle East conflict.

Prospects that Donald Trump’s upcoming visit to Beijing could help reinstate direct US LNG imports to China are gaining traction, with LSEG data indicating that three carriers loaded in Louisiana could reach China within a month.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) and American companies have announced “billions of dollars” of LNG and gas pipeline-related infrastructure investment across Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). The key objective of Trump’s ‘Peace Pipeline Framework’ and the broader ‘Three Seas’ supply corridor is to facilitate more US LNG imports.

With more than 12 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) of Middle East crude oil and LNG production taken offline due to the Iran war, Russia emerges as the clear winner of global supply shortages. US President Trump’s sanctions relief for Russia’s short-term oil was meant to ease supply disruptions, but had little effect.