Ukraine has been a major buyer of natural gas on European hubs this year, scrambling to replenish heavily depleted stocks. As war-related risks persist it is still looking to secure more volumes even as it tries to protect domestic production and increase output in challenging conditions. In this interview, Artem Petrenko, secretary general of the Association of Gas Producers of Ukraine tells Aura Sabadus about the country’s preparations ahead of winter and the first steps taken as part of a US-Ukraine mineral deal that could attract investments in its upstream sector over the upcoming years.

Senior reporter Clare Pennington interviews ICIS senior data analyst Fei Xu and senior Asia LNG reporter Paula Xiao to unpick what is going on in Japan’s LNG market.

Japan is one of the world's largest LNG buyers, surpassed only by China in recent years and still vying for top spot as the world’s largest LNG importer. But in the long term, some buyers think Japan might be overpositioned, ploughing too much money into its LNG purchase power.

Both China and Japan are firmly over-contracted at the moment, but Japan’s expiring contracts will place the latter in an under-contracted position by 2028. ICIS expects Japanese companies to sign more long-term contracts in the coming 2 years to fill this gap. But with wider energy investment plans, including in nuclear, how should Japan approach this changing market?

High capacity booking interests for gas exports from Romania to Hungary for the next ten years indicate that regional companies may be preparing for the start of Black Sea gas production from 2027. Last year, Romania became the EU’s largest gas producer, a position that is likely to be further consolidated when output at the Neptun Deep bloc is set to start. Nevertheless, it hasn’t always been plain sailing for the project, which has faced political and regulatory headwinds over the years, and first volumes are set to reach markets at a time of numerous changes including surging global LNG production. In this latest podcast, Franck Neel, executive board member of OMV Petrom, the project operator, tells Aura Sabadus about latest developments at Neptun Deep, the company’s regional expansion plans and why Romanian Black Sea gas will have a competitive edge.