by Eurolng.com Staff
TTF at €104: what the week did to the ssLNG book
Front-month gas, 26–30 October 2026, and the invoice that industrial buyers compare
The front-month TTF contract settled at €103.94/MWh on Friday 30 October, up €10.14, or +10.8%, from the previous Friday. The day’s range ran to €104.36, a four-year high. For a road tanker of about 280 MWh, that weekly step is roughly €2,800 on the molecule alone, before the haul and the supplier margin.
This is not a climate story. It is a procurement story. At a three-digit TTF, the industrial buyer compares the next working invoice, not the emissions slide.
1. The week in numbers
Figures below are ICE Endex front-month settlements, in euro per megawatt-hour. Friday 23 October is the reference close.
| Date | Settlement | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 23 October | 93.80 | — |
| 26 October | 96.54 | +2.9% |
| 27 October | 95.83 | −0.7% |
| 28 October | 100.34 | +4.7% |
| 29 October | 97.92 | −2.4% |
| 30 October | 103.94 | +6.1% |
The week’s range was about €93.2–104.4. Thursday’s dip to €97.92 was profit-taking. Friday took it back, and then some. October as a whole has been a one-way move: the same contract was near €75 at the start of the month. Four up months in a row, and the curve is still bid into the heating season.
2. Why it held
Three constraints landed in the same week. None of them eased by the Friday close.
Hormuz. Qatar and the UAE move almost all of their LNG through the Strait. There is no alternative route. ACER reports that no significant Qatari volumes reached the EU over the summer of 2026, and that the Middle East disruption added an estimated €18–33 billion to Europe’s gas import bill for the same quantity of gas. US LNG is now about 30% of EU gas supply. Asia is bidding for the same flexible cargoes. A free ship does not choose Europe by default at these levels.
Storage. The EU entered late October at about 75% full. ACER put stocks at 75% on 21 October, after a winter exit of 28%. By 29 October the fill was still about 74.8%, roughly 16 points under the five-year average for the date. Germany, near 62%, and the Netherlands, near 65%, are the weak books. Injection has effectively stopped. A cold November draws, it does not refill.
Weather and Norway. Northwest Europe turns colder than normal into the first week of November, with the first low-wind spell of the season. Norwegian maintenance is still taking volume off the system. The prompt contract is pricing a winter that starts with a thin cushion, not a surplus.
3. What €104 does to a truck
ssLNG does not have its own price. The delivered offer is TTF + a logistics premium + a supplier margin. At €104 the index is the whole conversation.
A practical comparison, using a typical trailer near 280 MWh and a haul near €1.9/km:
| Item | Order of magnitude |
|---|---|
| Molecule, one truck at Friday’s close | about €29,100 |
| Same truck at the previous Friday | about €26,300 |
| Weekly move, molecule only | about €2,800 |
| 500 km haul at €1.9/km | about €950 |
The exchange moved the invoice by more than the cost of a 500 km delivery. Distance still matters, but it no longer decides the tender. The index does.
Three commercial consequences follow.
LPG wins the marginal plant. This is the second time in ten years that small-scale LNG has lost a price fight to LPG. The buyer who can switch does not wait for a green case. A dual-fuel burner is an exit button on a week like this, not a retention tool.
The supplier premium cannot absorb the print. In a TTF + X formula, X does not rescue a three-digit index. Old caps near €50/MWh, where they still exist, are deep out of the money for the seller. Spot volume stops. The buyer who stays is the site with no pipe and no fast LPG alternative.
A free loading slot is not demand. Spanish and Baltic terminals can load the trailer. The constraint is the finance director, not the bay. Spare truck-loading capacity does not become a journey if the delivered price fails the next invoice.
4. What to do with the November offer
Do not chase the Friday print, and do not argue emissions with a buyer who is €10/MWh worse off than last week. Three moves hold a book. A lecture does not.
- Cap the November offer. A corridor, or a short discount to TTF, beats a full pass-through of €104. Ninety days of margin is cheaper than losing the site for the season.
- Price the exit, not the molecule. Show the buyer the full cost of a move to LPG: burner work, downtime, excise, and the next contract. At €104 the ssLNG case only holds if leaving is actually expensive.
- Do not sell volume you must buy on the day-ahead. Fix the slot and the haul. Leave the molecule inside a ceiling. Promising a fixed truck into an open prompt market is how a supplier becomes the buyer’s hedge.
Takeaway for the ssLNG market
While Hormuz is constrained, EU storage sits near 75%, and November starts cold, the base case is a three-digit TTF. Thursday showed that profit-taking exists. Friday removed it.
For the truck market this was the week the contract matters more than the quote. The buyer who can switch to LPG will switch. The buyer who cannot will pay for continuity of supply, not for volume in stock. National loading capacity does not change that. The invoice does.
Sources: ICE Endex front-month settlements via MarketWatch, 23–30 October 2026; ACER gas monitoring note, 27 October 2026; GIE AGSI+ storage readings cited by market briefings, 27–29 October 2026. Figures as of the Friday 30 October close. This is market commentary, not a price forecast or trading advice.