LNG Price History: Monthly Japan Import Price Since 1992

Liquefied natural gas (LNG) lets gas move by ship between regions that pipelines cannot connect, and Japan was long the world’s largest importer. This dataset reproduces the World Bank Pink Sheet import price of LNG in Japan, cost, insurance and freight included (CIF), in US dollars per million British thermal units (MMBtu), as monthly averages since January 1992. The World Bank flags the two most recent months as estimates. Australia, Qatar, and the US are the largest exporters; Japan, China, and South Korea the largest importers.

Dataset: LNG (Japan) Price (1992–2026) · Updated 2026-10-01

Data provided as is, with no warranty of accuracy or timeliness. Check any figure against the primary source cited on this page before using it. Terms: legal notice.

Source: World Bank, Commodity Price Data (The Pink Sheet) · CC BY 4.0

Macro Takeaway

Dataset Overview

Dataset Variables

The CSV and Excel files contain the following columns. Each row represents one calendar month.

Column names match the CSV headers exactly.

Download the Complete Dataset

The full dataset is available in CSV and Excel formats: monthly observations covering more than three decades.

Data provided as is, with no warranty of accuracy or timeliness. Check any figure against the primary source cited on this page before using it. Terms: legal notice.

Source Data Access: World Bank Pink Sheet

The underlying series is the “Liquefied natural gas, Japan” column of the Monthly Prices sheet in the World Bank’s Commodity Price Data, known as the Pink Sheet. The World Bank publishes it as a monthly Excel workbook on its commodity markets page, under a CC BY 4.0 licence that requires attribution to the World Bank.

The Eco3min dataset reproduces that column unmodified from January 1992, in US dollars per million British thermal units, in a stable CSV with a fixed column name for direct use in Python, R or any data pipeline. The URL never changes, which makes it suitable for automated scripts.

Direct CSV Access: Eco3min Structured Dataset

https://eco3min.fr/dataset/lng-japan-price.csv

This URL returns the complete dataset in CSV format. It can be used directly in pandas, R, curl, or any data tool.

Using the Dataset in Python

import pandas as pd

url = "https://eco3min.fr/dataset/lng-japan-price.csv"
df = pd.read_csv(url, parse_dates=["date"])

print(df.head())
print(df["lng_price"].describe())

df.plot(x="date", y="lng_price", title="LNG (Japan) Price", legend=False)

Using the Dataset in R

library(readr)

url <- "https://eco3min.fr/dataset/lng-japan-price.csv"
df <- read_csv(url)

head(df)
summary(df$lng_price)

Both examples load the dataset directly from the URL, no download or API key required.

Methodology

The World Bank reports the LNG price for Japan in US dollars per million British thermal units (MMBtu): the import price of liquefied natural gas, cost, insurance and freight (CIF) included. Its sources include Official Statistics of Japan and World Gas Intelligence, and the averages of the two most recent months are World Bank estimates.

Values are monthly averages, which smooth the intra-month swings visible in daily futures and physical quotes. The series begins in 1992.

An Eco3min pipeline on GitHub Actions reads the Pink Sheet workbook after each monthly release, keeps the column unmodified and regenerates the CSV, Excel and JSON files and the page metadata. The World Bank updates the Pink Sheet on the second business day of each month.

Data Quality & Provider Notes

The Pink Sheet price is a widely cited reference for the physical market. A few provider-specific points matter when using this series.

• Release latency. The World Bank publishes the Pink Sheet on the second business day of each month, with the average of the month just ended. Eco3min refreshes the file after each release. The series is not a real-time price.
• Monthly average vs futures spot. This series is a monthly average. It will differ from any single exchange settlement, and a monthly average necessarily understates intra-month peaks.
• Revisions. Prices are market-derived and are not revised like survey-based macro series, but the World Bank can correct recent months or replace a series, and it lists those changes in the notes of the Pink Sheet workbook.
• Source change on 30 September 2026. Until that date this file reproduced another publisher’s series; the whole history was then rebuilt from the Pink Sheet column, so figures downloaded earlier can differ (median gap of about 8% over the common period, much larger in some months).
• Estimated recent months. The World Bank flags the two most recent monthly averages as estimates and replaces them in later releases, so the last two rows of the file can change at the next update.
• Alternative sources. ICE futures and the originating auction or indicator bodies provide higher-frequency or contract-specific quotes.

Common Pitfalls When Using This Series

1. Confusing nominal and real prices. This series is nominal. Comparing an early-1990s reading to a recent one without adjusting for cumulative inflation overstates the real change. Deflating by CPI gives the true purchasing-power move.
2. Reading the monthly average as a market price. Headlines quote exchange futures; this dataset reports the monthly benchmark average. The two diverge most during fast-moving rallies.
3. Unit confusion. This series is the Japan landed (CIF) LNG import price in USD/MMBtu; it has historically been largely oil-indexed (tied to the JCC crude marker), so it tracks oil more than gas hubs, and it differs from the Asian spot marker (JKM).

Historical Regimes

1992–2008: Oil-indexed era. Japan LNG was sold on long-term, oil-linked contracts, so it tracked crude oil. It rose from a low near $2.70 per MMBtu in December 1998, the lowest in the file, to a then-record near $15 in November 2008. On what drives the crude prices it tracked, see our analysis of oil inventories and crude prices.

2009–2014: Post-Fukushima surge. After the 2011 Fukushima disaster shut Japan’s nuclear fleet, LNG demand and prices surged to fill the gap, from about $11.50 per MMBtu in January 2011 to a peak near $18 in July 2012. The monthly average stayed above $15 throughout 2014.

2015–2020: Glut and decline. A wave of new Australian and US export capacity created a global glut, and prices fell from about $16 per MMBtu in January 2015 to about $5.90 in September 2020. That trough, several months into the pandemic, was the lowest since 2005.

2021–2022: Global crisis. The energy crisis and Europe’s scramble for cargoes drove Japan’s import price to a record near $24 per MMBtu in September 2022 as regions competed for supply.

2023–2026: Normalisation. New supply and milder demand eased prices from about $20 per MMBtu in January 2023 to about $11 in October 2025, though they remain sensitive to global shocks. Monthly readings in 2026 ranged from about $11.30 in February to about $15.70 in April.

Related Macroeconomic Datasets

Commodity Price Hub

This dataset is part of the Eco3min commodity price repository: energy, metals, agricultural softs and grains, most of them from the World Bank Pink Sheet.

Explore the Commodity Price Hub

Sources

• World Bank: Commodity Price Data (The Pink Sheet), Monthly Prices, column “Liquefied natural gas, Japan” (CC BY 4.0)
• Japan LNG import (CIF) price, from Official Statistics of Japan and World Gas Intelligence, the market basis of the Pink Sheet series

Dataset Reference

Eco3min Research. (2026). LNG (Japan) Price: Global Monthly Price (1992-2026). Source: World Bank, Commodity Price Data (The Pink Sheet), CC BY 4.0.<br> https://eco3min.fr/en/lng-japan-price-history-dataset/