Hurdles face putative Asia-Pacific LNG hubs

Singapore, Shanghai and Japan all wish to become trading hubs and price-reporting agencies are trying to establish benchmarks

Since 2010, Asia-Pacific, historically the world's dominant liquefied natural gas-buying region, has increased its share of the market by 10 percentage points—it now accounts for 70% of global imports. Yet despite this hulking market position, the region lags well behind the US and Europe in developing tradeable indices that would allow market players to hedge price exposure and increase liquidity. This may be changing. Recent increases in short-term contracting and gas-to-gas price competition have encouraged many to believe that the region, which includes the world's four largest buyers of LNG (Japan, China, South Korea, and Taiwan), may be on the verge of developing local mechanisms that