The Dutch Title Transfer Facility is strengthening its position as a major global natural gas trading hub. Trade in the European hub is surging thanks to higher gas imports from Russia and Norway as well as LNG from other suppliers. Dutch gas futures trading volume on the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) has surged by 24% so far in 2020, after more than doubling in 2019 and 2018. The growth outpaced that of the US Henry Hub benchmark.
Cheniere Inc.’s trading arm uses price linked to TTF instead of the Henry Hub for its delivery to China. Even the Japan-Korea Marker (JKM), the benchmark gas prices in east Asia, the world’s largest gas market, has increasingly tracked the TTF prices. An executive with PetroChina said that TTF had gained growing popularity among global gas traders.
