BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 26. Global liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply is expected to increase by 3.5 percent in 2022, and 3.2 percent - in 2023, Trend reports, citing Capital Economics, UK-based research and consulting company.
According to the paper, these figures are down from the actual 4.5 percent in 2021, and the average of 8.3 percent from 2015 through 2019.
As the researchers noted, Europe’s LNG imports over the first half of 2022 showed a dramatic year-on-year increase of 55 percent. Now Capital Economics forecasts an increase of 60 percent to just over 100 million tons for total 2022, which will keep LNG prices up in a long term.
Meanwhile, Asia’s LNG imports slightly dropped. “Our forecasts assume some pick-up in China’s LNG imports later in the year so that the contraction in 2022 will be around 15 percent”, the report said.
The US showed a steady ramp-up in LNG exports, however, Capital Economics expects it to slow down again in 2023, “as there is little new capacity scheduled to come on stream”.
“Given the finite nature of supply and Europe’s rapidly rising LNG demand, we expect prices to remain high at least until 2024 when supply growth should pick up again. We think Asian demand will pick up in 2023 and growth in the EU’s imports will slow owing to capacity constraints,” the report concluded.
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