The Financial Times (via Nikkei Asia) might be worth a read... The devil’s in the detail of the spot market.
https://www.ft.com/content/1e20467a-5b53-42b7-ad89-49808f7e1780
Asia was paying more than Europe, last year, when spot prices were in the ballpark of $6 per million metric British thermal unit (mmbtu).
Currently, China is paying Russia $45 per million BTU while Europe’s been paying $60 - a tenfold price hike from the pre-war spot price.
Russia was only very recently trying to chisel $80 on the Asian market and speculators in the East have noticed $100 being bandied about in relation to LNG from Sakhalin.
So compared to pre-war, China’s making a very tidy profit, as the cost has gone up at least fivefold since it bought the excess and if Russia tries the $100 trick, China will be able to sell double the quantity for the same price and still make a handsome profit.
Piped Russian natgas is probably around 6 to 10 bucks an mmBtu.
Our domestic Henry Hub natgas is at 9 bucks per mmBtu.
I still don’t buy a massive discount.
All they need to do is a simple max/min calculus problem to show them where to set the price for maximum profit.
Why do a 50% discount and burn through inventory when a 10% discount will give you the same profit?