The International Gas Union (IGU), in its recently-published annual report in the global LNG industry in 2019 said that worldwide LNG trade increased by 13% in 2019, marking the sixth consecutive year of growth. Major exporters such as the US, Russia, Australia recorded significant growth in 2019. The US overtook Russia as the world’s third-largest LNG exporter behind Qatar and Australia.
According to the report, emerging LNG markets such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, Poland, and Panama increased their intakes significantly last year, while major markets such as India added new floating regasification capacity. Asia and the Asia Pacific regions contributed to 70% of global LNG imports in the previous year. Combined, the regions were the world’s largest LNG market in 2019.
The main key findings of the report include a 13% increase in global LNG trade which set a new record of 354.7 million tons last year. The US added the most export capacity by 13.1 million tons, followed by Russia (+11 million tons) and Australia (+8.7 million tons). However, Qatar maintained its position as the world’s largest exporter, with a total capacity of 77.8 million tons.
China increased imports by 7 million tons and Europe by a combined 37 million tons. Conversely, Japan and South Korea both imported less LNG. Meanwhile, Egypt and Argentina became LNG exporters last year.
In the US, developers sanctioned projects with a combined capacity of 30.1 million tons/year in 2019, thanks to the availability of abundant shale gas in the region. The Marcellus and Utica shales in the Appalachian Basin contributed to 45 Bcm of the production increase thanks to new pipeline capacity.
Liquefaction capacity is expected to reach 454.85 million tons/year by the end of 2020 following an all-time high capacity of sanctioned projects totalling 70.8 million tons/year. Africa had 20.9 million tons/year of liquefaction capacity approved last year.
Three expansions at existing terminals and the start-up of six new terminals between 2019 and February 2020 led overall LNG regasification capacity to 821 million tons/year, which are located in 37 countries. China, Brazil, India, Bangladesh, and Jamaica accounted for 23.4 million tons/year of regasification capacity addition last year.
