It's interesting, we may have come full circle with LNG.
For (ever) decades, LNG was priced on long term contracts linked to oil energy equivalency pricing in order to allow the purveyors of LNG facilities to seek debt financing to build these multi-billion $ facilities. About 3-4 years ago, consuming nations began to move the market towards spot pricing in order to take advantage of the surplus of MSF NG developed all over North America as well as rapidly expanding Australian LNG.
However, prices have come down in the futures market to such a degree that I wonder whether we might see a leaning back to the primacy of long-term contract pricing. I don't really follow LNG too closely, but it occurs to me that purchasers might consider locking in prices to avoid the risk of future price jumps in the spot market.
Regards,
Naamkat