Platts proposes Sea Stream price assessments for European regasified LNG

Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, proposes to launch natural gas price assessments reflecting the value of regasified LNG (RLNG) at four German import terminals, effective April 16, 2025.

RLNG locational price assessments are net forwards of the prevailing Platts Northwest European (NWE) marker using the industry leading LNG benchmark as its basis. Costs such as terminal fees, regasification, marine fuel and emissions are included to determine a delivered-at-place (DAP) value for natural gas.

Europe, notably Germany, have become increasingly reliant on LNG as a source of natural gas, as imports from Russia have dwindled. With the delivery and commissioning of Floating Storage and Regasification Units (FSRUs) to replace pipeline natural gas, Germany has secured direct access to the international market for seaborn LNG. This also exposes the German market's natural gas virtual trading hub (THE) directly to the global LNG market fundamentals, reflected in the RLNG price assessments.

The new assessments would reflect prices of DAP RLNG in the month that matches the DES NWE LNG front-delivery month, as part of the Atlantic Basin Assessments in Platts Specifications Guide Global LNG (https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/our-methodology/methodology-specifications/lng/liquefied-natural-gas-lng-assessments-and-netbacks-methodology), for the four terminal locations at Mukran, Stade, Brunsbuttel and Wilhelmshaven in Germany. For example, on June 15, the DAP RLNG assessments would reflect July deliveries; the next business day after June 15, the assessments would roll to reflect August deliveries.

Platts will additionally publish short-term capacity and total-capacity costs per terminal, which is the weighted average of short-and-long-term capacity costs. These will be published daily per terminal in $/MMBtu.

Additionally, Platts proposes to introduce arbitrage assessments providing a differential, reflecting the spread between RLNG front-month assessments and respective THE month-ahead equivalents.

For example, on June 15, the arbitrage-differential assessments would reflect the spreads between the value of DAP RLNG available at the German terminals in July and THE month-ahead (July); the next business day after June 15, the differential would reflect the spreads between the prices of DAP RLNG available at the German terminals in August and THE second month-ahead (August).

All RLNG and differentials would be assessed in $/MMBtu, and then converted into Eur/MWh and pence/therm daily, utilizing standard conversion factors (https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/our-methodology/conversion-tables) and prevailing foreign exchange rates at the time of the assessment. In determining the RLNG versus THE differential assessments, the existing conversions for the German THE would be used in accordance with Platts Specification Guide European Gas (https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/our-methodology/methodology-specifications/natural-gas/european-gas-methodology).

The new assessments would reflect the value at the close of the market at 16:30 London time and would follow the UK publishing schedule. Platts would publish the assessments on the LNG Alert newswire and the LNG Daily publication, alongside existing coverage on these services.

Please send comments, questions, and any other feedback about this proposal to LNGeditorialteam@spglobal.com and pricegroup@spglobal.com by March 14, 2025.

For written comments, please provide a clear indication if comments are not intended for publication by Platts for public viewing. Platts will consider all comments received and will make comments not marked as confidential available upon request.