LNG demand growth not enough to rebalance market by end-2022
By Trend
The growth in liquefied natural gas (LNG) demand is not expected to be sufficient to rebalance the LNG market before the end of 2022, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its report.
“The volume and diversity of LNG trade flows are increasing rapidly with the appearance of new exporting and importing countries. Liquefaction capacity is expected to grow by 160 billion cubic meters (bcm) over the period to 2022, led initially by Australia (30 bcm), but with the largest increase in growth then coming from the United States (90 bcm),” said the report.
This additional LNG capacity is being added to a market that is already well supplied, particularly as demand is declining in some of the large, traditional LNG importing countries such as Japan, according to IEA analysts.
“In these conditions, with relatively low LNG prices, exporters are having to work hard to open up new markets. A sign of this effort is the rapid growth in the number of countries importing LNG, which has already grown from 15 in 2005 to 39 today. This growth in LNG has been helped by the increased use of floating storage and regasification units, and it will absorb some of the surplus gas on the market as another eight countries are expected to add LNG import facilities by 2022,” said the report.
Nonetheless, the growth in LNG demand is not expected to be sufficient to rebalance the LNG market before the end of the forecast period, IEA analysts believe.
Ample availability of LNG is putting pressure on traditional ways of pricing and marketing natural gas, said the report.
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