Two US LNG cargoes were diverted to Europe from their Asian destinations as demand eased, Bloomberg reported October 9, the latest sign of a wholesale swing in US export flows. Europe plus Turkey received 76 of the 143 US LNG cargoes delivered in September, about 53 percent of the total, an analysis of S&P Global Energy CERA data showed, with the Netherlands the top destination at 15 cargoes, followed by Egypt, Italy and Spain with 14 each and France with 12.
LSEG ship-tracking data tells the same story independently: US LNG exports climbed to 10.9 million metric tons in September from 10.7 in August, with Europe taking 5.91 million tons, 54 percent of the total, up from 5.8 in August. Asia’s share fell hard. The region took 2.84 million tons, 26 percent of US exports, and its cargo count dropped to 41, 29 percent of deliveries, down from 36 percent in August, with delivered volume sliding to about 2.7 million tons from 4.2 million. The Dutch TTF benchmark averaged $25.42 per million British thermal units in September, just above the Japan-Korea Marker at $25.39.
The driver is freight economics, not just storage. The US front-month arbitrage to Asia via the Cape of Good Hope is firmly closed and pointing to Europe, Spark Commodities analyst Qasim Afghan said, and forward curves show Europe remaining the most attractive region for US cargoes through the winter. February and March 2027 show Europe more than $3 per million BTU more profitable than Asia, the strongest US arb signal to Europe since December 2022.
The urgency is real on the receiving end. EU-wide gas storage stood at 72 percent full as of October 3, against nearly 83 percent at the same point in 2025 and about 94 percent in 2024, and Germany’s vast storage, the world’s fourth largest, is only about 57 percent full. Cove Point’s three-week autumn maintenance is trimming near-term US output. The qualifying risk is price: Spark cautions that fourth-quarter signals are not strong enough to rule out region switching, so a JKM-TTF flare could still pull flexible cargoes back to Asia, and the new LNG carrier deliveries arriving this winter put a ceiling on freight rates.