DM Monitoring
Tokyo: The Asia Pacific and Asia led liquified natural gas (LNG) demand in 2020 accounting for 70% of imported volumes and the recent discovery of gas reserves have increased proposed LNG liquefaction capacity in Africa, putting the continent in the spotlight as a potential key export region, according to the data in the International Gas Union’s (IGU) new report.
Last year was the seventh consecutive year of growth in LNG trade despite the COVID-19-related impact on the supply and demand side worldwide, data compiled by Anadolu Agency (AA) from the IGU’s World LNG 2021 report showed.
Australia overtook Qatar as the largest exporter of LNG last year with 77.8 million tons. Qatar followed with 77.1 million tons, the U.S. with 44.8 million tons and Russia with 29.6 million tons. Malaysia became the fifth largest exporting country with 23.9 million tons in 2020.
The U.S. and Australia increased exports by a total of 13.4 million tons last year, the majority of it coming from the U.S.
Japan led the LNG imports in the world with 74.4 million tons despite the fact that Japan’s demand fell by 2.4 million tons as compared to 2019. Apart from the demand downfall in Japan, the demand of Mexico and France dropped by 3 million tons and 2.5 million tons, respectively, becoming the largest contractions globally.
China was the second-largest LNG importer with 68.9 million tons, South Korea followed with 40.8 million tons, India with 26.6 million tons and Chinese Taipei (Taiwan) with 17.8 million tons, the data showed.
Myanmar was a new addition to the list of global LNG net importers in 2020, importing 200,000 million tons.
“Asia remains the primary demand driver for LNG and it is expected to continue this way for some time, with Japan, China, Korea, India, the broader region expected to be the primary drivers of demand,” IGU told AA in a note via email. “This is not to say that LNG is not in demand across global markets. The EU imports 81 million tons, which is more than either China or Japan singly but obviously is somewhat fragmented and nowhere near as significant as Asia Pacific imports.”
Turkey became the ninth-largest LNG importing country last year with 10.7 million tons, according to the IGU.
