Spot cargoes for North Asia were assessed at $26.00 per million Btu in the week ended September 11, up 150% from $10.40 in late February, and European storage was only 69.31% full on September 19, which is why the bidding war for American LNG is being won by the continent that needs it most
The same molecule that leaves a Texas terminal is worth one price at the dock and almost ten times that price when it lands in Europe. That gap is the whole story of the gas market right now.
Spot liquefied natural gas for delivery to North Asia was assessed at $26.00 per million British thermal units in the week ended September 11, a 45 month high. In the week to February 27, the same cargoes were worth $10.40.
Run the arithmetic and the claim holds exactly: 10.40 times 2.5 equals 26.00, so the increase is 150%, not a rounded figure. Reuters columnist Clyde Russell published the two assessments on September 16, and OilPrice.com picked the story up on September 19.
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Henry Hub, the American benchmark, settled at $2.71 per million Btu on Friday of that same week. Two prices, one fuel, one ocean in between.
The two weeks that bracket the 150%, and what sits between them
The starting week is not an accident. February 27 was the last full week before the United States and Israel began striking Iran, and before shipping through the Strait of Hormuz turned into a problem for anyone loading gas in the Persian Gulf.
Qatar supplied close to 20% of the world’s LNG before that. In August, according to Kpler data cited by Russell, a single cargo of about 70,000 tons cleared the strait, against an average of 6.51 million tons a month in the three months to the end of February.
Qatar’s energy minister put the annual shortfall from the force majeure at roughly 12.8 million tons earlier this year. Nothing has replaced that volume yet, and the new American plants that could replace it are not all running at once.
Three price tags for the same fuel, lined up on the same days
We pulled each number from the venue that publishes it, then converted everything to the same unit so the comparison is honest. One megawatt hour equals 3.412141 million Btu, and the European Central Bank reference rate on September 18 was 1 euro to $1.1460.
| Benchmark | Price as quoted | Converted to $/MMBtu | Date | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Henry Hub, U.S. spot | $2.71 per MMBtu | 2.71 | Sept. 11, 2026 | EIA daily price series |
| Henry Hub, latest print | $2.97 per MMBtu | 2.97 | Sept. 15, 2026 | EIA daily price series |
| Dutch TTF, front month (OCT26) | 79.090 euros per MWh | 26.56 | Sept. 18, 2026 | ICE Endex, 113,990 lots traded |
| North Asia spot LNG, JKM style | $26.00 per MMBtu | 26.00 | week ended Sept. 11 | assessment cited by Reuters |
Here is our conversion, written out. Take 79.090 euros, multiply by 1.1460 to get $90.64 per megawatt hour, then divide by 3.412141 to get $26.56 per million Btu.
That puts Europe’s front month at $26.56 against Henry Hub’s $2.71 on September 11, a ratio of 9.8 to 1. It also puts Europe slightly above the North Asia assessment, which is the mechanical reason cargoes are turning west.
Europe is not paying more because it wants to
Asia can say no. Europe cannot, and the reason is written on the storage meters.
Gas Infrastructure Europe publishes the fill level of every storage site in the bloc every morning. On the reading for September 19 at 6 a.m. Central European time, European Union storage stood at 69.31% full, holding 784.25 terawatt hours against a technical capacity of 1,131.57.
Russell put that figure at about 16 percentage points below the five year average for the date. Injection was still running at 2,834 gigawatt hours a day on the last reading, which is the sound of a continent buying on the way into winter.
The national numbers are worse than the average in the places that matter most. Germany, the largest consumer in the bloc, was 56.26% full. The Netherlands was 54.55%. Poland, at the other end, was 98.32%.
| Country | Storage full, Sept. 19, 2026 |
|---|---|
| European Union | 69.31% |
| Germany | 56.26% |
| Netherlands | 54.55% |
| France | 79.10% |
| Italy | 85.32% |
| Poland | 98.32% |
Norwegian pipeline gas is already at peak output, Russian pipeline gas is under sanctions, and Russian LNG faces new restrictions in January. Buying expensive cargoes is not a strategy in Brussels, it is the only column left on the spreadsheet.
Asia looked at $26 and walked
September arrivals in Asia are tracking 20.09 million tons, the weakest September since 2018, on Kpler estimates. That is down from 22.27 million a year ago and 22.25 million in August.
China is doing the arithmetic loudest. September arrivals are estimated at 4.32 million tons, against 5.20 million in August, and the spot price is running at roughly twice the level at which importing still pays.
India is set for 1.86 million tons, its weakest since March. Pakistan is down to about 120,000 tons, from 490,000 tons in the same month last year. Buyers that can switch to coal are switching.
Europe, meanwhile, is going the other way. Kpler sees 7.98 million tons landing this month, 10.53 million in October and 10.62 million in November, on the way to beating the 2025 record of 125.20 million tons.
What this does to the terminals in Texas and Louisiana
Every one of those cargoes starts at a jetty on the Gulf Coast, and the plants have never been bigger. On August 28, Cheniere took control of the seventh and last train of its Corpus Christi Stage 3 project.
That pushed the Corpus Christi terminal to 3.1 billion cubic feet a day of nominal capacity, or 3.9 Bcf/d at peak, making it the second largest LNG facility in the United States, behind Sabine Pass at 3.6 Bcf/d nominal and 4.6 Bcf/d peak.
The Energy Information Administration published that finding on September 15 and posted the map of every American LNG terminal two days later. Two more midscale trains at Corpus Christi are under construction for 2028, worth another 0.4 Bcf/d.
The export figures are following the plants. EIA’s monthly series shows 521,059 million cubic feet shipped out as LNG in June 2026, the newest month released, which works out to about 17.37 Bcf/d.
| Period | U.S. LNG exports | Against the year before |
|---|---|---|
| June 2026 | 521,059 MMcf, about 17.37 Bcf/d | up 28.3% from June 2025 |
| January to June 2026 | 3,167,695 MMcf, about 17.50 Bcf/d | up 23.2% from the first half of 2025 |
| Full year 2026, EIA forecast | 17.4 Bcf/d | 18.6 Bcf/d penciled in for 2027 |
We added the first six months ourselves from the EIA table: 3,167,695 million cubic feet against 2,571,419 in the same months of 2025. Spread over 181 days, that is 17.50 Bcf/d, almost exactly the 17.4 Bcf/d the agency forecast for the full year.
American households are standing on the cheap side of the same trade
There is a version of this story where record exports drain the country and the heating bill follows the export price. The data for this winter does not show it.
Working gas in underground storage in the Lower 48 stood at 3,298 billion cubic feet on September 11, the EIA reported on September 17. That is 118 Bcf above the five year average, even after sitting 122 Bcf below last year.
The agency expects tanks to hold 3,969 Bcf on October 31, which would be 5% above the five year average and 1% above October 2025. Europe, on its September reading, is running about 16 points under its own average.
The price forecast follows the inventory. EIA’s September 9 outlook puts Henry Hub at $3.43 per million Btu for 2026 and $3.28 for 2027, a long way under the $26.56 a European buyer is committing to for October delivery.
The forward curve says Europe expects to pay through March
Futures are not predictions, but they do show where money is being placed. On ICE Endex, the October contract settled at 79.090 euros, November at 78.705 and December at 78.300.
January is at 77.915 and February at 77.230, so the market is not betting on relief inside the heating season. March sits at 74.765, and then April drops to 60.850, a fall of almost 19% in one month.
That cliff between March and April is the market saying it expects the squeeze to end with the cold, not before. It is also the reason European buyers are competing for October cargoes instead of waiting.
The gamble Europe already lost once
European buyers delayed their refill purchases earlier this year, betting the Middle East war would end quickly and Qatari gas would come back cheap. It did not, and they are now buying at the top of the range.
That mirror image happened in 2022, when companies rushed to secure winter gas, the winter came in mild, demand fell and prices collapsed, leaving billions in losses. The difference is that Europe still had some Russian pipeline gas then.
Whether this winter repeats it depends on weather nobody has measured yet. What is already measured is the price, the storage level and the number of cargoes turning west, and all three point the same way.
What would have to change for the spread to close
Three things, in order of how fast they could happen. Qatar returning to the Strait of Hormuz would be the fastest and the one nobody controls.
New American trains ramping to full rates would be second, and that is partly happening already, with Corpus Christi Stage 3 finished in August and Plaquemines, Golden Pass and Port Arthur on the EIA map.
A mild European winter would be third, because it would let 69.31% become enough. Until one of those lands, the cargo leaving Texas keeps going wherever the bid is highest, and right now that bid is written in euros.
