The New Japanese LNG strategy: a major step towards hub-based gas pricing in Asia

The new Japanese LNG Strategy published in May 2016 envisages the creation of a liquid market and an international LNG hub in Japan. This promises to radically change the traditional JCC (crude oil) based pricing system in Japan, but also potentially in the Pacific Basin as a whole. But the path to hub creation and hub pricing in the early 2020s envisaged by the Strategy will not be straightforward. Non-US LNG projects starting up in the 2016-20 period have JCC-linked prices. ….