Bloomberg
reports that the US tied Qatar as the leading exporter of LNG in 2022. The US
would have been number one were it not for the fire at the Freeport LNG liquefaction
facility in Texas in June of 2022 which cut about 50BCF per month or 17% of US LNG
export capacity. After considerable delays the plant is expected to be back
online at the end of January 2023 or soon thereafter. Currently, five new LNG export
terminals are under construction in the US and 11 more have been approved by
FERC but are not yet under construction. The US will overtake Qatar as soon as the
end of this month when the Freeport LNG terminal comes back online. However,
Qatar does have significant plans for expansion by 2026.
Source: BloombergNEF; Ship-Tracking Data. Note: 2022 figures are according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg
China was the world’s leading importer before their Covid
lockdowns but in 2022 Japan became the leading importer. Japan and South Korea
are major importers. However, they plan to add nuclear capacity and eventually
slow down their use of LNG in a push to decarbonize. They also plan to keep
their import capabilities running at high capacity in the future to resell a
significant portion of their LNG to other South Asian countries. Japan has by
far the most LNG import capacity followed distantly by South Korea. Among the
countries listed in the graph below Japan represents 33.4% of total import capacity
and Japan and South Korea combined represent about 49% of total import capacity.
China has by far the highest amount of import capacity under construction
(85.3mta) and proposed (129.7mta) so their capacity will rise significantly.
Germany, with 5.5mta under construction and 43.2mta proposed, Brazil, with
11.8mta under construction and 40.8mta proposed, and India, with 33mta under
construction and 32mta proposed are a distant second.
Data Source: Statista
Global imports
of LNG hit a record high in 2022 at 400.5 - 409 million tons. Estimates vary by
compilers. In 2022 Europe overtook Asia as the biggest LNG importer due to the
pivot away from Russian gas. It is estimated that Europe imported 24-25% of
global LNG traded on the market in 2022, about 101 million tons. That was a 58%
increase over 2021.
Newer forms of smaller LNG development include floating LNG (FLNG) also known as fast LNG. This is applicable to offshore gas producing fields. New Fortress Energy is developing five new FLNG liquefaction units at 1.4mta each for a total of 7mta. These units with smaller liquefaction trains can be built fast compared to larger onshore units. They are planning more in the years ahead. As of November 2022, they believed only 70-80% of Europe’s winter 2023-2024 gas needs could be met. However, this may have changed with the warmer winter in Europe so far in 2022-2023. Three of the units will be deployed offshore Mexico and two offshore Louisiana. These five units are expected to be completed by 2024. The company believes these five fast LNG units will represent half of global new export supply in 2023-2024. New Fortress is also building floating regasification units (Netherlands) as well as onshore regasification facilities (Brazil). They are bullish about LNG-to-power where LNG is regasified to directly feed nearby power plants. LNG-to-power configurations can vary in size from LNG-as-fuel facilities with 0.05mta to small scale LNG (SSLNG)-to-power at less than 0.5mta to world scale LNG-to-power at greater than 2mta.
References:
US Surges to Top of
LNG Exporter Ranks on Breakneck Growth. Bloomberg. January 2, 2023.
US
Ties Qatar as World’s Top Exporter of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) - Bloomberg
Countries with
largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) import capacity in operation worldwide as
of 2022. Statista. July 2022. Global
LNG import capacity by country 2022 | Statista
Global LNG Imports
Hit A Record High In 2022. Tsvetana Paraskova (oilprice.com). Yahoo finance.
January 12, 2023. Global
LNG Imports Hit A Record High In 2022 (yahoo.com)
Energy Crisis Makes
Europe The World’s Premium LNG Market. Tsvetana Paraskova. Oilprice.com. January
9, 2023. Energy
Crisis Makes Europe The World’s Premium LNG Market | OilPrice.com
Countries with
largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) import capacity in construction and
proposal stage worldwide as of 2022. Statista. July, 2022. Global
LNG import capacity developed by country 2022 | Statista
New Fortress to
Bring Online ‘More Than Half’ of World’s New LNG Export Capacity in 2023-2024.
Jamison Conklin, November 9, 2022. Natural Gas Intelligence. 1
Message! (naturalgasintel.com)
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