European gas took center stage this week, with published research broadly pointing to further upside risk into winter.
TTF futures pushed to roughly EUR 90–93.50/MWh, a four-year high, as multiple analysts flagged the same squeeze: EU storage peaked near 75% (versus an 89% five-year average), inventories sit about 100 TWh below last year, and Qatari LNG is running at only a fraction of pre-conflict volumes after continued Strait of Hormuz disruption. One modeling exercise argued a one-standard-deviation colder winter could lift TTF around 70%, toward EUR 150, while a meaningful Qatari recovery would drag it back near EUR 70. Several notes stressed weather as the swing factor.
In Asia, researchers see Japanese LNG structurally tight around $24.5/MMBtu in Q4, with normalization not expected before 2028. The Asia-TTF spread is seen narrowing as Europe bids aggressively for cargoes.
A contrarian longer-term view argued AI power demand will extend fossil use only marginally, with gas demand fading as electrotech scales.