Mild winter to delay tighter LNG market-JPM

* Gas link with oil also to be delayed by mild weather

* But long-term link between gas-oil to remain in place

By Henning Gloystein

LONDON, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Mild winters in Europe and Asia could push the tightening of the global market for liquefied natural gas (LNG) out to next winter and delay a reinstallment of the oil-gas price correlation, JPMorgan said on Thursday in a research note.

Weak gas demand is reflected in prices. The benchmark UK gas price for delivery next summer has fallen some 22 percent since last summer as the economic crisis and a mild winter sapped demand.

"Unseasonably mild temperatures have dampened gas demand in Europe, Japan and South Korea this winter. This could push the tightening of the global LNG market out to next winter in our view, given that large inventories of gas are likely to have been accumulated in storage," the bank said.

The weak gas market stands in contrast to firm oil prices, which have been kept high by tight supplies and tensions between Iran and the West.

"Oil prices have been resilient in the face of the worsening economic outlook ... (and) this looks set to continue as the U.S. and EU embargo Iranian oil in 2012," JPMorgan said.

In the longer term, however, the bank said that the LNG market would still tighten as Asian demand growth would outstrip supply additions, and this would restore a tighter correlation between oil and gas prices.

"On balance, we still expect spot gas prices to correlate to long-term oil-indexed prices over time, although with a more risky outlook than before given potential economic/political headwinds."

The bank said that European utilities, and especially Germany's E.ON and RWE and France's GDF Suez, would benefit from such price movements.

Many European utilities and gas supply companies are suffering from long-term gas deals with suppliers such as Gazprom or Statoil, which link their import rates to oil prices, while supply firms are forced to sell gas to customers at lower retail prices linked to the freely traded spot market. (Editing by William Hardy)