Northeast Asian spot prices have already climbed to $28.40 per million British thermal units, marking the highest valuations since late 2022. Shell’s president of Integrated Gas, Cederic Cremers, warned at the Gastech conference that Europe enters the winter season with storage facilities less than 70% full, significantly trailing the five-year average of 80%. This deficit leaves the continent critically vulnerable to seasonal demand spikes.

Wood Mackenzie chairman Simon Flowers projects that a cold winter could push prices to $40 per MMBtu, a threshold equivalent to $240 per barrel of Brent crude. Such an escalation risks triggering widespread demand destruction across industrial sectors. Given that transit flows through the Strait of Hormuz are not expected to normalize before year-end, the market remains locked in a high-stakes competition for flexible, non-Middle Eastern cargoes that can bypass geopolitically volatile chokepoints.