Within the framework of the Council of Ministers’ Information and Decision Support Center’s interest in monitoring and analyzing everything related to international reports that deal with Egyptian affairs or fall within the scope of its interests, the center highlighted the fourteenth annual report issued by the International Gas Union in July 2023, on “liquefied natural gas.” This report is the most comprehensive public source on major trends in LNG.
The report indicated that although 2022 was a turbulent year in the history of gas markets, LNG showed great potential as a primary energy source with reliable energy and flexibility for the safe transition of energy.
The report confirmed that American companies supplied about 55.3 metric tons of natural gas to Europe in 2022, an increase of 148% over their exports to the European market in 2021, and US gas exports to Europe amounted to about 44% of their total exports to the world, and US exports of liquefied gas represented About 69% of Europe’s total imports of liquefied natural gas are from the countries of the world.
The report stated that the LNG trade has linked 20 natural gas exporting markets with 48 gas importing markets that have infrastructure, as the global gas trade, which connects many countries of the world, facilitated the transfer of large quantities of energy within a few months.
The report indicated an increase in the global liquefaction capacity of natural gas in 2022 by 4.3%, bringing the total natural gas that is liquefied globally to about 478.4 million metric tons. Liquefaction of natural gas quantities of 88.1 million metric tons per year.
The report also indicated that 10 European countries, including Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, France, Croatia and Italy, have established new infrastructure for natural gas. This includes the establishment of 26 projects with a combined natural gas capacity of about 104.5 million metric tons of natural gas.
The report stated that the demand for natural gas has witnessed a decline in the recent period in most countries in Asia. This applies to the two fastest growing markets in Asia, India and China, where China’s imports of natural gas decreased by 19.3%, and India by 17.7%.
The report indicated that the rise in natural gas prices could negatively affect the global progress that has been made in the field of combating climate change, driven by consumers’ tendency to rely on environmentally polluting energy sources such as oil and coal, in light of the ability of liquefied natural gas to support international efforts to shift towards clean energy. By replacing oil and coal and supporting efforts to reduce carbon emissions.
The natural gas liquefaction industry may adopt policies to reduce carbon emissions by taking deeper paths to reduce the carbon generated by this industry, such as the use of renewable natural gas, biomethane, low-carbon or renewable hydrogen, or ammonia.
In view of the global trade volume of liquefied natural gas in 2022, the report indicated that it amounted to about 401.5 million metric tons, and the global liquefaction capacity of natural gas until the end of 2022 amounted to about 478.4 million metric tons.
The report stated that Japan came as the first importer of natural gas in 2022, with a value of 73.6 million metric tons, and Australia retained its position as the largest exporter of natural gas in the world, as it exported in 2022 about 80.9 million metric tons, followed by the United States of America, with a total of 80.5 tons of exports. One million metric tons, Qatar ranked third with total exports of 80.1 million metric tons, and Russia ranked fourth with total exports of 33 million metric tons.
In the same context, the Information and Decision Support Center followed up and reviewed the short-term forecasts for the natural gas market of the International Energy Agency, according to what was included in the “Global Gas Security .. Review of 2023” report issued by the agency, as it indicated that a decline in global gas consumption has occurred. by about 1.5% (equivalent to 65 billion cubic meters) in 2022, and that the bulk of this decline was concentrated in the main Asian and European import markets, and this downward trend continued during the first half of 2023; European member states of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) recorded the largest decline in natural gas consumption by more than 10% (exceeding 30 billion cubic meters) year-on-year in the first half of 2023. Similarly, consumption in North America decreased by 0.6 percent. % (about 5 billion cubic meters), and this decrease was driven by the mild climate during the winter of 2023 (the first quarter of 2023) in addition to the slowdown in economic activity, while the rates of demand for natural gas remained in the Asia-Pacific region during the first four months from 2023 close to levels over the past year.
The International Energy Agency expected that global gas supplies would remain insufficient to cover global demand in 2023, given the inability of LNG supplies (20-25 billion cubic meters) to compensate for the decline in gas shipments through Russian pipelines to Europe (which fell by more than 40 percent). billion cubic metres), assuming demand remains more or less constant; In light of expectations that most of the demand growth will come from the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East and Africa, and accordingly, the agency expects that Chinese demand for gas will increase by more than 6% in 2023, and that its imports of liquefied natural gas will increase by nearly 15%.
For the year 2024, the agency expected that the global demand for gas would achieve a moderate growth rate of about 2% during that year, supported by the expectation of a recovery in economic activity, assuming a return to average winter weather conditions in the northern hemisphere again, and the concentration of the bulk of gas will remain Demand growth expected in the Asia-Pacific region, accounting for approximately 80% of total demand growth through the end of 2024.