Asian trading hub: There are some inherent challenges
Feb 27: Clearly, the need for Asia to develop its indigenous gas or LNG trading hubs is felt by everyone. 8Since the intra-regional pipeline connection is largely non-existent, it is the LNG spot cargo trading that is likely to become the basis for a regional gas futures market. 8Although the pathway to such gas trading hubs might be more difficult for Asia due to factors such as a lack of indigenous production and inter-connectivity, vertically integrated industry structure, the traditional preference of supply security, and unclear political signals, a growing market creates an opportunity to start new terms with new contracts. 8To create functional hubs and transition to hub indexation, governments will need to dramatically liberalize the gas and electricity markets and eventually transit from oil indexation to hub indexation. Click on Reports for more on this