New edition of “The LNG Industry”, the sectoral observatory on the international LNG market

• 30 Mar 2016

The International Group of  Liquefied Natural gas Importers has recently published the 2016 edition of  “The LNG Industry”, the sectoral observatory on the international LNG market.

In 2015, the global LNG trade has grown by 2.5% in 2015, with total quantities reaching an all-time high of 245.2 million tons (MT) over the year. In an international context characterized by slowing economic growth and falling prices, the good result was achieved thanks to new volumes from Indonesia and especially from Australia, which became the world's second largest exporter behind Qatar; most of the growth was absorbed by the Middle East and Europe,  where net imports recovered thanks in part to a large decrease in re-exports.

In  2015, the new capacity added to market  was about 14 MT, while another 42 million tons per year of capacity should come on stream in 2016. On the demanad side, Europe has experienced an increase of  16% of consumes, while the Americas have suffered a reduction of 8%.  The mature markets of North-East Asia - especially Japan and South Korea - have experienced the first decline occurred after the recession of 2009, while demand for LNG in China continued to grow, despite the lowest rate of  GDP growth.

In conclusion, at the end of year, the supply capacity of 19 LNG exporting countries amounted to 307 million tons, while the regasification capacity at 34 importing countries stood at 777 MT.

In this regard, the capacity utilization rates resulted  just below 80% in the case of liquefaction plants, and in the order of 32% for the regasification terminals.

In the longer-term, the future of LNG imports looks positive, considered the  wide availability of  capacity among consuming countries, while  LNG continues to be recognized as a clean, flexible and competitive solution to satisfy energy needs across all demand sectors and regions, in particular in the new promising markets of marine and road transportation.

While the price convergence in the Atlantic and Pacific Basins in 2015 has reduced arbitrage opportunities and restrained the interest for interbasin-trade, the decline of LNG prices have deferred some  green-field project globally expected; However during the year, a positive trend in new investments was still confirmed , with five new investment final decisions (FID) for  new liquefaction projects (in total 19.3 MT), of which four planned in the United States, which in 2016 have opened their first historic export of LNG from Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana, and one in Africa (Cameroon).