CASE STUDIES / CHARTERING · ANALYSIS · NOV 2025
Charter rates swing portfolio P&L by millions.
A primer on how LNG time-charter economics work, then a worked portfolio showing exactly where rising freight forces diversions and where financial hedges take over.
$9.84M
WHAT SPOT FLEXIBILITY IS WORTH AT $70K/DAY CHARTER
The book behind the numbers.
01 · THE BOOK
A 12-month 2026 portfolio: US FOB length default-covers a Chinese DES short, with European and Asian spot outlets ready to absorb diversions. Two chartered 174k vessels move everything.
P&L across the charter curve.
02 · THE SWEEP
The same book, run with and without spot flexibility, from $10k to $70k a day. Below roughly $40k both are identical and everything sails to Asia. Above $50k, diversions to Europe make the flexible book decline far more slowly.
With spot outlets
Without spot outlets
SLOPE PER +$10K/DAY: -$5.1M WITH SPOT · -$6.4M WITHOUT
What flexibility is worth, in dollars.
03 · THE PREMIUM
In per-MMBtu terms the flexible book never goes negative; the rigid one turns negative at $70k a day, -$0.04 per MMBtu. The dollar value of having spot outlets is zero up to $40k and grows sharply beyond it.
Freight futures take the wheel.
04 · THE HEDGE
Hedging the rigid book with the CME BLNG2-174 strip at 0 to 100% of on-hire ship-days flattens P&L against parallel curve shifts. At full ratio the book is flat at $0.57/MMBtu whatever freight does; the spot-enabled book is a partial natural hedge on its own.
FUTURES BASELINE $62,831/DAY · BLNG2-174 · PARALLEL SHIFTS
05 · THE VERDICT
Below about $40k a day, route everything to Asia. Above it, diversions and freight futures are what protect the book.
CONSTANT ANNUAL CHARTER RATE · VALID $10K-$70K/DAY · CHARTER COST ON ON-HIRE DAYS ONLY
THIS ANALYSIS RAN ON X-LNG
The whole analysis, priced inside the optimisation that plans your fleet.
X-LNG runs analyses like this on whole portfolios in seconds, so the answer sits in every netback, diversion and charter call rather than in a spreadsheet weeks later.
