JKM

The Japan Korea Marker (JKM) is the benchmark price assessed daily by S&P Global Platts for spot LNG delivered to Northeast Asian ports — primarily Japan, South Korea, China, and Taiwan — on a DES (delivered ex-ship) basis. Launched in 2009 to bring price transparency to a market that was almost entirely long-term and oil-indexed, JKM has since become the reference price for a growing share of physical spot cargoes and financial derivatives, including JKM swaps and futures traded on CME and ICE. It is the Asian counterpart to Europe's TTF hub price, and the two together define the global LNG arbitrage window.

The JKM-TTF spread is the single most-watched signal for inter-basin cargo allocation. When JKM trades at a significant premium to TTF, flexible Atlantic LNG cargoes — typically US-origin or West African — route east; when TTF is above JKM, cargoes flow to Europe. In early April 2026 the spread compressed to USD 0.10/MMBtu, effectively eliminating Asia's price advantage and triggering eight Atlantic cargo diversions to Europe. By late April, with the Strait of Hormuz closed to Qatari and UAE LNG, JKM recovered to the USD 16.55/MMBtu range while TTF lagged near EUR 41-42/MWh, re-routing flexible cargoes east. In the week to 7 May 2026 the JKM-TTF spread narrowed again to approximately USD 2.30/MMBtu — down from USD 2.90-3.30/MMBtu a fortnight earlier — reducing but not eliminating Asia's price advantage.

Because JKM is a market benchmark rather than a physical entity, it does not belong to any single country or shipper. Its movements Ripple across every LNG-importing region: a rising JKM tightens European supply by pulling cargoes east; a falling JKM risks European storage under-fill if Atlantic supply has already been committed elsewhere. During the 2026 Hormuz crisis JKM functioned as the real-time barometer of Middle East supply disruption, making it a key cross-topic indicator across European energy markets and Iran-conflict coverage.