Towards an Integrated Spot LNG Market: An Interim Assessment
研究了东亚、伊比利亚、西北欧和南美四个区域现货液化天然气市场的整合程度及演变，发现2011年福岛事故后价格趋于收敛，且与英国NBP价格趋同，与主要供应商市场势力变化一致。
This paper examines whether, and to what extent, the spot LNG markets in different regions (East Asia, Iberia, Northwest Europe, and South America) are integrated and how market integration evolves over time. We first lay out a framework of market integration in the context of global LNG market where the main supplier (e.g. Qatar) may have market power. Estimating a time-varying coefficients model, we find that a varying degree of market integration exists between all four LNG indices particularly after the Fukushima incident in 2011. We complement the time-varying coefficient analysis with a test of price convergence among the LNG indices using the Phillips-Sul (2007) methodology. The results reveal that, there is strong evidence that the spot LNG prices are converging after the Fukushima accident and they are also converging with the price of NBP in the UK. The empirical result is consistent with the change of market power of the main supplier.