The combination of a severe cold snap in Asia, supply outages and maritime congestion has propelled spot prices for LNG to previously unforeseen heights. The North Asian price benchmark has now risen 18-fold in less than nine months, outperforming other commodities

State-owned Qatar Petroleum is planning a to increase LNG production by 43% to 110 million mt/year by 2025, up from 77 million mt/year currently.

The current trend suggests that Asia will remain the top destination for US LNG for months to come, following robust deliveries to the continent in 2020.

"The quick change in the market dynamics has taken Indian LNG buyers by surprise. A lot of Indian buyers can't afford to pay these prices. We will see demand destruction across various sectors,"

North American LNG export developers are hoping sustained high prices will provide incentive to buyers to sign more long-term commercial deals that would enable the developers to sanction new terminal projects in 2021.

The average price of LNG imported by China in November, comprising both term and spot cargoes, was about $6.28/MMBtu on a delivered basis, up 15.3% from about $5.44/MMBtu a month earlier,

Natural gas futures in Europe and Asia have climbed to their highest levels in more than a year due to a sharp increase in demand late in 2020,

Several factors contributed to the increase in U.S. LNG exports in recent months.

Egypt is among a small group of spot-exposed LNG exporters that were forced to curtail production because of low prices in mid-2020.

More than 30 million mt/year of LNG production capacity is under development in Mozambique as the country looks to join the ranks of the world's biggest LNG exporters.